"Ifemelu shifted. Kelsey's knowing tone grated. Her headache was getting worse. She did not think the novel was about Africa at all. It was about Europe, or the longing for Europe, about the battered self-image of an Indian man born in Africa, who felt so wounded, so diminished, by not having been born European, a member of a race which he had elevated for their ability to create, that he turned his imagined personal insufficiencies into an impatient contempt for Africa, in his knowing haughty attitude to the African, he could become, even if only fleetingly, a European. She leaned back on her seat and said this in measured tones. Kelsey looked startled; she had not expected a mini-lecture. Then, she said kindly, 'Oh, well, I see why you would read the novel like that.'"
After reading the pure delight of Adichie's historical fiction, Half of a Yellow Sun, which told through literature the horrifying story of the Biafran war and, what some may consider, genocidal policies pursued by the Nigerian government to end the secession of Biafran through starvation as a weapon of mass destruction. If you can recall, I have blogged about that beautiful, well-researched and well-written novel, here. Americanah looks to the Nigerian immigrant experience in the United States and Britain, however, with little of the deep, well-researched historical detail of the various generals and dictators who caused unrest, university strikes, and economic turmoil, which prompted the novel's protagonists, secondary school lovebirds, Ifemelu and Obinze, to take their chances abroad in the US and UK. So, instead of a novel set entirely in Nigeria during the early postcolonial decades, Americanah focuses on two Nigerian experiences in a transnational, global world shaped by immigration, race, love, Westernization, and, beginning around page 190, takes a literary quip at Naipaul's A Bend in the River, a pro-imperialist, racist critique of Mobutu's rule of Zaire generalized for an entire continent, an entire 'race' (I wrote about Naipaul's novel, here and check this out).
The novel also adopts an interesting, non-linear narrative structure. Each part of the novel is divided into it's focus on the life of Ifemelu or Obinze, and it often leaps backwards and forwards chronologically to explain or connect events in their lives, from Ifemelu's eventual move to the US, living with her Aunty Uju, traveling in the US, attending university, and dating a middle-class American black, Blaine, and a wealthy white American, returning to Nigeria, and, rediscovering Lagos, the metropolis of West Africa. Obinze, on the other hand, stays in Nigeria to finish university, struggles to find work, manages to make it to the UK through his mother, a university professor in Nigeria, his visa expires, and he is then deported back to Nigeria right before his sham marriage to a European Union citizen, a biracial woman of Angolan and Portuguese heritage. Personally, I found the transitions to different phases in the life of both characters confusing or too rapid, as if each event in the course of Ifemelu's life was just a long string of inevitability in succession. Don't get me wrong, I was enthralled by the novel and could not put it down, but the back-and-forth felt awkward and lacked a more flowing, gradual transition at times. Obinze's backstory, in my opinion, is slightly lacking, since I am still a little confused as to how he became a 'big man' in Lagos and acquired property after living a life of immigrant hardship in the UK, but in the last part of the novel, everything comes together and, for the most part, makes sense.
That said, the novel's quite compelling, particularly for the focus on race, hair and body politics for women of African descent, both in Africa and the US, and the topic of black immigration in the US, which is often overlooked or ignored by the focus on Latin American or Asian immigrants. Indeed, reading Ifemelu's thoughts and life story while in the US, I know from personal experience some of what she discusses. Furthermore, the use of a fictional race blog started by her, allows for Adichie's personal views on race to enter the text in some rather direct, obvious ways. I don't mind, however, since she's on point, on white liberal and white conservative racism in the US, and how the NAB (Non-American Black) perspective on race relations in the US is often eliminated or reduced to stereotypes of Black immigrants distancing themselves from 'race' and African-Americans (or, American blacks, as Adichie often refers to them in the novel). Clearly, some of the experiences of Ifemelu are autobiographical, because Adichie lived in the US for some time, too, attending Ivy League institutions while vividly experiencing and observing racial segregation, disproportional poverty, and the long, deep, historical roots of American racism. In addition, Adichie's relatively privileged Nigerian Igbo background is reflected in the two characters, Ifemelu and Obinze, who are not the poorest, most desperate Nigerians seeking a living in Europe or the US, but rather, come from educated and middle-class families, though the plight of Ifemelu's civil servant father's struggle to find work in the earlier part of the novel establishes her lower middle-class or working-class roots. Perfectly aware of this, Adichie likely engaged in critique of herself and privileged, educated abroad Nigerian returnees in Lagos, who, as Ifemelu sees in the Nigerpolitan club, consist of wealthy Nigerians who complain incessantly about how Lagos is not New York City, Nigerians do not cook or consume the same style of food as American and European peoples, and, last but certainly not least, Adichie critiques this dependence of the Nigerian elite on overpriced American and European styles and trends. Similarly, she criticizes the notion that black women, both American and Nigerian, feel pressured and compelled to relax or straighten their hair for employment or, just to be considered attractive (as well as the skin bleaching phenomenon, which Ifemelu notices in some Nigerian women whose whitened faces don't match the darker skin elsewhere on their bodies.
Moreover, Ifemelu's on point blogs in the novel resonated with me, a fellow blogger who often writes about race. Her blogs are the keys to her career success: fellowship at Princeton, advertising profits from the blog and fan donations, conferences (which, as Adichie so knowingly wrote, consisted of Adichie lying to conference attendees at corporations and schools about American 'progress' on tackling racism since she knew none of these people read her blog, but in the desire to appear anti-racist, hired her to speak and congratulate mostly white audiences on their good work), and meeting her educated, middle-class American black lover, Blaine, who she has a serious relationship with after the disastrous end to her relationship with Curt, a wealthy white American whose conservative mother was racist (though not nearly as racist as the aunt of the children Ifemelu becomes a nanny to while attending university in Philadelphia, to finish her communications major). Her blogs, her voice and outlet to the world on her thoughts regarding race relations in the US and 21st century Lagos, also reveal the transnational, global links in the world wrought by increased communication. Advances in technology include the democratization of cellular phones in Nigeria beyond the wealthy, internet and computer usage, transnational immigration, and, perhaps most significantly for Ifemelu and Obinze, the vicissitudes in the economic conditions of Lagos.
Reminiscent of a critique leveled against Lagos from a class on African Urban History I observed last semester, Lagos is either a heaven of capitalist entrepreneurial spirit, or a disgustingly unequal city illustrative of the lack of equity wrought by capitalism's iron fist. The widespread practice of government corruption that allows some 'big men' to establish monopolies and acquire extreme wealth indicates more of the latter, at least in my mind, since the shacks, poor quality roads, and exploitation or neglect of the dispossessed appears stark in the novel. Adichie's characters also experience the blackouts and expensive cost of living in what may be Africa's largest city. Nevertheless, Ifemelu defends Lagos as a city on its own terms, despite her initial sympathies with Nigerpolitan returnees and their condescension towards the city of their homeland. Lagos is Lagos, it is Nigeria, not New York, and it never will be. Thus, one sees some African and Nigerian nationalist sentiment in Adichie's characters, who strive to create their own identities instead of regurgitating Western cuisine, styles, and definitions of urban space and life. Equally important in the case of Ifemelu, acknowledging race and the importance for black women to accept their natural, God-given hair and bodies, shows common sense as well as some elements of Nigerian and African self-love and nationalist sympathies.
Ultimately, Ifemelu escapes the "Americanah" identity of a Nigerian returnee who talks in an American accent, thinks the "American way is the best" and struggles to conform to dominant notions of American (or Western and European) superiority. Race and the immigrant experience of poverty, xenophobia, and cross-cultural learning teach Ifemelu and Obinze to not place American practices, literature, and lifestyles on a pedestal above that of their own local, Nigerian identities. This actually reminds me of a piece from The Guardian on Afropeans who, despite being raised or born in Europe, seem to be returning to the African nations of their parents, which Ifemelu and others also do in this novel, though they were raised in Nigeria before leaving for the US. Moreover, some of the scenes described resonated with me as beautiful reminders of the Francophone West African women who braid black hair in run-down shops, often in bad neighborhoods, and the racial microaggressions, disappointment after the charismatic, uplifting Obama campaign of 2008 (which plays a significant role for Ifemelu and Blaine's relationship, not only uniting many eager to see a black president and a 'changing America' but also restoring their relationship), and the vivid, moving descriptions of black immigrant family life in predominantly white towns, suburbs, and areas, such as Aunty Uju and Dike's life in small-town Massachusetts. Despite some slight problems, this is a brilliant, captivating novel, and hopefully it will reach out to Nigerians and Nigerian-Americans, as well as other African and black immigrant families, whose negative views toward African-Americans will be challenged by the honest dialogue of Ifemelu.
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