THE TRAUMA OF EXILE AND MIGRATION IN CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S AMERICANAH

Abstract

Chimamanda Adichie is one writer whose literary stature is no longer in doubt. Bold, fearless, with rare raw talent in literary creativity and activism, Adichie leads the way in the 21st century dwarfing many of her contemporaries and blazing the trail that inevitably will guide future literatures still to emerge from the continent. Her third novel, Americanah is a testament on the travails of race and a chronicle of the excruciating experiences of Africans in the diaspora. With Reader Response Theory as theoretical anchor, this study examined the various shades and untold stories of the African-diasporic experiences as seen from the prodigious lens of Adichie’s Americanah. Through an in-depth analysis of the text, the study revealed the varying socio-economic and most importantly, psychological trauma of exile on African immigrants forced by the interplay of socio-political, economic and even religious ‘forces’ to escape their countries in search of refuge and greener pasture abroad. The paper concluded on racism, oppression, loneliness, denigration as attendant psychological traumatic experiences of many of the diaspora characters in Adichie’s Americanah and how the novel serves as panacea by drawing attentions to these myriads of problems begging for urgent and patriotic attentions in order to remedy this massive movement away and restore dignity to humanity irrespective of the side of the planet he or she identifies