This was going to be a book review but then it turned out to be a rumbling of my thoughts, doubts and questions about the book and about a whole load of other things.
I was excited about this new book by Chiamamanda Ngozie Adichie. No I have never read any of her other books. I’ve listened to her lectures on Youtube and I was sucked in. For the first time, here was an African, saying it as it is without sugar coating some of the stark realities about race, gender and class that we face so that people do not shift uncomfortably in their chairs. She’s touched on everything from colonisation and the lies colonialists tell themselves about colonisation to feminism and what it means. I got excited listening to her because it gave me courage. A giddy sort of courage, that maybe next time someone says something ridiculous about Africa, in the blissful ignorance of a person who knows nothing about a topic they think they know everything about, I could call them out on their crap. She made me question my decision to remain silent about how disappointed I am that my university, supposedly one of the best institutes for development studies, taught a neo-colonial version of development and was churning out students whose knowledge on (insert developing region) was built on hundreds of articles and books written by westerners who’d visited these regions a handful of times, a few Asians and the a smattering of Africans and Arabs. This is a subject that deserves a whole blog post of its own and I will do that soon.
Anyway, I bought the book two days ago. I read it all of yesterday and most of today, finishing it an hour ago. It was what I had expected. Honest, engaging and sometimes uncomfortable. It did what a good book should. It made me question and think a little deeper than the surface thoughts I am used to. It made me see myself through the eyes of the characters and some of what I saw was unsettling. I’m on of those Kenyan’s who ‘went abroad’ and started drinking any other milk except the one from cows, ‘went natural’ and use natural hair products and my dream home is an old rustic home covered with ivy on a farm in the middle of nowhere. That in Nigeria is an ‘Americanah’. But I have never been to America, and contrary to the description of an ‘Americanah’ I still have a Kenyan accent that I refuse to lose because it feels awkward talking in a British accent. I have a difficult time with my r’s and l’s and my favourite foods are chapati and the mokimo that my grandmother makes (mashed potatoes, peas (or greens) and maize mixed in at the end). So what exactly does that make me? At first I felt guilty for actually enjoying almond milk and vegetarian sausages. I wanted so badly to not be like that. To prefer the new and flashy homes with cold hard tiles, and a garage that could house 5 cars to my dream of an old home that my future husband and I would renovate and restore (sorry future husband you are in for some serious manual labour!!). My mother does not like vintage or second hand clothes. When I first came to UK, I was – though I never openly said it – shocked that everyone bought second hand or vintage clothes. I’d see magazine fashion features with an actress wearing a 1960s vintage dress she bought in a flee market in wherever and I marvelled at how comfortable they were in their own skin to wear a second hand dress and proudly declare it so in a national publication. But my mother put it well – when you have not grown up in a world where peeling paint on chipped furniture, severely patched clothes, old hand-me-downs were the constant reminder of a life of poverty, then it is ‘exotic’ to love old worn out things. And somehow being in this environment of plenty had somehow influenced my likes and dislikes without my consciously knowing it.
What stood out the most for me in the book was the role of Christianity in the book. Granted Christianity is used as a crutch and excuse for laziness and persecution among many other things, I was still left with a bad taste in my mouth at the thought that the lasting impression most people will have of Christianity in Africa is a bunch of hypocritical zealots who invoke God’s name whenever they want to get something out of the world. As a Christian, it saddened me because there are many Christians in Kenya and I am sure Nigeria who do not attend church solely to see how many blessings they can squeeze from God. There are many who have a heart for God and seek him not the possible presents that may or may not come with knowing him.
Has anyone else read Americanah? What do you think about the whole concept of an Americanah and the book itself?
You're Just Jealous of my Afro Comb 