Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

Karen Ferreira-Meyers (University of Eswatini)

Ed. by Helen Rachel Cousins, Birmingham Newman University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 8.2.3: Anglophone African Writing and Culture: Subsaharan.
Vol. editors: Helen Rachel Cousins (Birmingham Newman University), David Firth (University of Manchester)

Dates

First circulation or publication Apr 2013

Places

United States (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one of the many authors of African descent who have succeeded in challenging the literary canon through their narrations. She has been described as one of the leading Nigerian diaspora authors of her generation (Murphy, 2017). Adichie discovered her vocation as a storyteller while living in America, but in many of her texts – short stories and novels mainly – she focuses on life in Nigeria.

Americanah

(2013) is the author’s first extended work of fiction in which she tackles the complexity of being a Nigerian in America. In it, she highlights racism as a difficult social issue and tackles 'blackness' as an living experience sharing common features whether it is lived in Britain, Nigeria or the USA.

In the year Americanah was published,

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1569 words

Citation: Ferreira-Meyers, Karen. "Americanah". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 November 2018 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35020, accessed 18 April 2024.]

Save this article