Contemporary Nigeria presented by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

social engagement in the Adichiean novel

Abstract

Social engagement is, by definition, the act of committing to something, in addition to participation in political and social issues. Those who are committed to elected causes due to internal-external factors are considered engaged, taking a fighting position in the face of the tribulations that surround them. From this perspective, I point out Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as a personality known for her social engagement. Based on this assumption, I propose to analyze excerpts from the three Adichiean novels published so far, Purple hibiscus (2003), Half of a yellow sun (2006) and Americanah (2013), in order to scrutinize the representations of Nigeria in the periods encompassed by the stories, from 1960 to 2013, and to verify how the author contributes to broadening the understanding of Nigeria, from its place of engagement, by presenting a complete and complex country, different from the poverty imaginary widespread by the western media. I conclude that the distribution of narratives created by a black, African-Nigerian and counter-canonical woman in academic-theoretical and commercial circles seems to point to a slow paradigm shift, in order to expand the notion of Western canonical literature. Thus, I reinforce the decision to understand Adichie as a symbol of engaged, diasporic and feminist intellectual, since her presence in the mainstream publishing market is already an example of transformation of the paradigmatic axes of contemporary literature.