The Afropolitanist Discourse and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah: A Reading

Abstract

Consider now Taiye Selasi's ‘Bye-Bye Babar' article in The Lip Magazine of March 3, 2005 and the emergence of what has been variously described as a movement, a critical theory, a label and even a cultural commodification. Afropolitanism represents for twenty-first century young Africans what Pan-Africanism represent for their fathers. Indeed, as it is with the emergence of a new art movement or philosophy, the controversy stirred by Afropolitanism is yet unresolved. This essay is not an attempt to fuel it. Instead, this paper places Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah within the context of Afropolitanist discourse. It tries to reveal how the novel befittingly fits into an afropolitanist mould, through a conscious juxtaposition of  Afropolitanism's definitive article andAmericanah in order to expose their points of overlap. This essay therefore is a reading of Adichie's Americanah through an Afropolitanist lens.