Another Nigerian ‘Girl’ Goes for Literary Glory:
..Could win a Prestigious Prize and
£30, 000
by
Wale Adebanwi
The place from where one wakes up is his home.
- Igbo proverb
Homelessness is homelessness, no matter where
you live - Glenda Jackson
As
their country continues to sink further into the
cesspit constructed by a
perfidious political class, some young Nigerians
abroad continue to get
recognition for mirroring in prose the social
anomie and cosmic dilemma of the society that
produced them. And it is such a delight to
psychologically partake in these celebrations
and validations of ‘our being’ beyond the
corrosive confines of our fatherland already
captured by medieval rogues.
On the heels of Helen Oyeyemi’s 400, 000 pounds
advance for her two-book deal with Bloomsbury
publishers, comes the news that US-based
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is among the twenty
authors whose books were short listed for the
30, 000 pounds (more than N 6 million) Orange
Prize for Fiction in the UK. The prize, which is
in its ninth year, is for a first-time female
novelist of any nationality.
Chimamanda’s book, Purple Hibiscus, which is
among the 12 non-British authors in the list of
twenty, mirrors the political crisis in Nigeria.
Her real experience of social anomie as a child
growing up in a university campus (Nsukka) is
the material that she turned round into readable
fiction. She told The Times of London last week
that: “Nigeria has an incredible wealth of
talent that has been hidden until now. It is
flowering now.” Well, just as their country
continues to be deflowered.
Although insulated from much of the political
unrest in Nigeria, the daughter of a former
University of Nigeria, Nsukka don, told the
press that her family once had to abandon their
house amid fears that they would be attacked by
protesting students. Her father was the deputy
vice chancellor and the house they lived in -
and which they had to abandon at some point -was
the house once occupied by one of Nigeria’s
best-known authors, Chinua Achebe. The muse
might have lived in the house; and so she
‘contacted’ the ‘prose disease’. As things fell
apart in Nigeria, she was no longer at ease.
Chimamanda’s book recalls scenes of everyday
violence such as driving past riots on her way
to school. The book that has brought the very
talented young woman all the growing attention,
Purple Hibiscus, revolves around Kambili, a
15-year old girl. Here is a gist of the story:
‘From the outside, 15-year-old Kambili has the
perfect life. She lives in a beautiful house,
has a caring family, and attends an exclusive
missionary school. She's completely shielded
from the troubles of the world. Yet, as Kambili
reveals in her tender-voiced account, things are
less than perfect in her wealthy Nigerian home.
Although her papa is generous and well
respected, he is fanatically religious and
tyrannical at home. He looms over his family's
every move, severely punishes Kambili and her
older brother, Jaja, if they're not the best in
their classes, and hits their mama if she
disagrees with him. Home is silent and
suffocating.
‘But everything changes once Kambili and Jaja
visit Aunty Ifeoma outside the city. For the
first time they experience freedom from their
papa. Jaja learns to garden and work with his
hands, and Kambili secretly falls in love with a
young, charismatic priest. As the country begins
to fall apart under a military coup, tension
within the family escalates. And shy Kambili
must find the strength to keep her family
together after her mother commits a desperate
act.’
‘Purple Hibiscus’, comments a book seller’s
website, ‘is a stunning debut that captures the
fragile beauty of a young woman's awakening at a
time when both country and family are on the
cusp of change.’ It is the story of our country.
Chimamanda was born in Aba, Nigeria in 1977 and
grew up in the university town of Nsukka. She
left Nigeria at 19 and moved to the United
States where studied communication and political
science at Connecticut State University.
Her short stories have been published in
Canadian, British and American journals
including Prism International, Wasafiri, the
Iowa Review and Zoetrope: All-Story. Her short
stories, which are mostly about the Nigerian
immigrant experience in America, have been
selected for the Commonwealth Broadcasting
Association award as well as the BBC short story
award. She was short-listed for the Caine Prize
for African Writing in 2002. Her story set
during the Nigerian civil war was selected to
represent the PEN Centre USA in the 2003 David
Wong short story contest.
As she started in an interview with Ike Anya
sometime ago, she is not afraid or ashamed of
her Biafran heritage. The young woman who was
born seven years after the ‘death’ of Biafra
wonders why people think the Biafran story ought
to be effaced. A courageous writer with a social
conscience and a sense of where she and her
people are coming from, Amanda’s story, ‘Half a
Yellow Sun’, published in Zoetrope: All-Story –
which I have read – speaks to her commitment to,
and understanding of, the culture and condition
that produced (and reproduce – in the post-Biafra
era) her. The short story is punctuated with
Igbo adages. One of such is the first quote
above.
She writes: “The Igbo say that a mature eagle
feather will always remain spotless… When we
gathered at the Freedom Square for the rally,
thousands of us students shouted Igbo songs and
swayed, river-like; somebody said that in the
market outside our campus, the women were
dancing, giving away groundnuts and mangoes.
Nnamdi and I stood next to each other and our
shoulders touched as we waved green dogonyaro
branches and cardboard placards. Nnamdi's
placard read Secession Now. Even though he was
one of the student leaders, he chose to be with
me in the crowd. The other leaders were in front
carrying a coffin with NIGERIA written on it in
white chalk. When they dug a shallow hole and
buried the coffin, a cheer rose and snaked
around the crowd, uniting us, elevating us,
until it was one cheer, until we all became one…
The Igbo say -- who knows how water entered the
stalk of a pumpkin?… The Igbo say that the maker
of the lion does not let the lion eat grass…(W)e
would sit in the verandah and eat fresh anara
with groundnut paste and listen to Radio Biafra,
the kerosene lamp casting amber shadows all
around. Radio Biafra brought stories of
victories, of Nigerian corpses lining the
roads….’
Those ‘annullers’ of national validation who
would accuse the likes of A Chimamanda of
nursing separatist wounds, let them tell us, if
‘Nigerian corpses’ are still not lining the
streets, 34 years after the Civil War ended. Let
them tell us if the country itself is not
already a ghost! And if the coffin of Nigeria
that is carried in her story is not a fitting
metaphor for where the country is presently
headed.
Chimamanda …. Going for glory
Amanda goes on: ‘The Igbo say that a fish that
does not swallow other fish does not grow fat.…
The Igbo say that the chicken frowns at the
cooking pot, and yet ignores the knife…. The
Igbo say that when a man falls, it is his god
who has pushed him down…’
The Igbo can say that again! When all those who
are troubling our portion of the earth
eventually fall – if they ever do! – we would at
least know, as the Igbo instruct us, that it is
their vile gods who stiffened their hearts
against public cries that have pushed them down.
Again, the Igbo say that the place from where
one wakes up is his home. Well said. It is a
desperately needed succour, especially for those
of us who have an unquenched longing for that
‘home’. But, Glenda Jackson disrupts our succour.
No matter how we pretend to have found a home
where we lay our heads, Jackson tells us that,
‘homelessness is homelessness, no matter where
you live’. So, for we the ‘homeless’, who call
the places where we lay our heads ‘home’,
Chimamanda’s story is another ray of hope…
Chimamanda and I have been in touch. I would be
sharing her story here when we get round to it.
Meanwhile, here’s wishing her the best of luck
as the panel of judges prunes down the list to
six on April 27, with the winner announced on
June 8.
Dr
Adebanwi teaches political science at the
University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He is currently
on leave from the university as a Bill and
Melinda Gates Scholar at Trinity Hall,
University of Cambridge, UK. He was at various
times TCDS Fellow (New School University, New
York, 1999), Claude Ake Memorial Scholar
(Africa-America Institute, Washington
D.C., 2001), and African Youth in A Global Age
Fellow (SSRC, New York, 2001-2002). He has been
a journalist for many years and has published
academic articles on political communication,
identity politics and democracy.
Dr Adebanwi
can be reached at
waleadebanwi@yahoo.com
