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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Breaking Gods: an African postcolonial Gothic reading of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 'Purple Hibiscus' and 'Half of a Yellow Sun'
Author:Mabura, Lily G.N.ISNI
Year:2008
Periodical:Research in African Literatures
Volume:39
Issue:1
Pages:203-222
Language:English
Geographic term:Nigeria
Subjects:novels
Igbo
About person:Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1977-)ISNI
External link:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/research_in_african_literatures/v039/39.1mabura.pdf
Abstract:Gothic as a literary term emerged in the late 18th century. Gothic fiction is imbued with 'a nostalgic relish for a lost era of romance and adventure'. Stock features of the genre include a castle setting that is sometimes surrounded by wild and desolate landscapes, apparitions, curses and other notions of evil, an atmosphere of overwrought emotions, fear, and doom precipitated by various notions of evil, and women in distress. This article examines Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 'Purple Hibiscus' (2003) and 'Half of a Yellow Sun' (2006) through an 'African Postcolonial Gothic' lens. It begins by tracing the historiography and manifestations of Gothic attributes in precolonial and colonial Africa as exemplified in novels such as Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' (1959), Mongo Beti's 'Poor Christ of Bomba' (1971), and Bessie Head's 'A Question of Power' (1974). It then discusses 'Half of a Yellow Sun', which explores postindependence ethnic strife in Nigeria, particularly the Biafra War, and situates it as the historical precedent of the contemporary haunted setting in 'Purple Hibiscus'. Adichie, the author argues, participates in an ongoing reinvention and complication of Gothic topography in African literature. She teases out the peculiarities of the genre on the continent; dissects fraught African psyches; and engages in a Gothic-like reclamation of her Igbo heritage, including Igbo-Ukwu art, language, and religion. Bibliogr., sum. [Journal abstract, edited]
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