Purple Hibiscus

First edition, published in 2003 by Algonquin Books.

Purple Hibiscus is the first novel by the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It portrays Kambili Achike, a 15 year old Nigerian teenage girl who struggles in the hands of her father Eugene. Eugene is a rich businessman and a devout Catholic but violently abuses his family and his wife Beatrice poisons him. Kambili's brother, Jaja, takes the blame inorder to protect his mother and gets life imprisonment. A post-colonial novel, it received positive reviews upon publication. Literary editor of New Statesman, Jason Cowley writes that it is the best debut he's read since Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things", and Yale University lecturer Bill Broun in reviewing it calls Adichie "the 21st-century daughter of that other great Igbo novelist, Chinua Achebe." The novel was published in the United States on 30 October 2003, by Algonquin Books. A year later, Fourth Estate published the book in the United Kingdom and in 2006, Kachifo Limited published it in Nigeria.

The novel is a coming-of-age story: the characters psychological and moral growth from childhood to adulthood changes, particularly Kambili and Jaja's tough life in Eugene's house and later, a free living in Aunty Ifeoma's house. Adichie started writing the novel during her university education at Eastern Connecticut State University. After publication, it won several awards including the Orange Prize for Fiction shortlist in 2004 and Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in 2005. Adichie investigates the themes of family, womanhood, and religion. Her writing style, combined with her use of Igbo description to convey characterizations and action, demonstrates her as one of the third generation of Nigerian writers.

Background

Literary influences

Adichie was born on September 15, 1977, in Enugu, Nigeria, to a middle-class Igbo family, with her parents, Grace Ifeoma and James Nwoye Adichie, and her five siblings. Adichie's childhood was marked by the complexities of post-colonial Nigeria, where traditional Igbo culture coexisted with the legacy of British colonialism.

By the end of 2002 Adichie has written two works - a poetry book, Decisions (1997) and a play, For the Love of Biafra (1998) - as well as many short stories, and other pieces. Adichie wasn't the first author to use Igbo oral traditions in her works. According to her, she draws on the rich storytelling heritage of her Igbo culture, incorporating myth, legend, and proverbs into her works. She is considered as part of a new generation of Nigerian writers, influenced by authors like Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta and Camara Laye. Adichie reflects her engagement with Western literary traditions, including the novels of Enid Blyton.

Writing history

Adichie was ages 24 and was attending the Eastern Connecticut State University when she started researching and writing Purple Hibiscus . She sent her manuscript to many literary agents and one agent told her to use the "African material" as background for a continued story set in America. Another rejected instantly with "NO" on the query letter and sent it back. Literary agents either asks for setting to be changed from Africa to America inorder to attract familiar readrrs or the manuscript gets rejected instantly. Djana Pearson Morris, an agent who works at Pearson Morris and Belt Literary Management, accepted the manuscript. Since Adichie was Black, Morris cited challenging commercial sales and sent the manuscript to publishers.

During the summer of 2002, Antonia Fusco, an editor at Algonquin Books, received the manuscript and accepted it for publication. Elizabeth Scharlatt, the then publisher at Algonquin, also recounted difficult challenges of the book publication as Algonquin was not driven by market trends or shareholder pressures. Although they launch new debut novel every season and since there was a small list in that year, all energy would be in promoting Purple Hibiscus. The novel was published in 2003. The publisher created support for sales and promotion including providing copies to booksellers, reviewers, and the media. Fourth Estate later published the book in 2004 in the United Kingdom and in 2006, Kachifo Limited published it in Nigeria.

Plot summary

Kambili Achike is a fifteen-year-old Nigerian girl from a wealthy family in Enugu State. The family is dominated by her father Eugene, who is a devout Catholic and businessman. Eugene is both a religious zealot and a violent figure in the Achike household, subjecting his wife Beatrice, Kambili, and her brother Jaja to violent abuse. Kambili tells the story beginning with Jaja missing the holy communion at church. Both later live at the house of their aunt, Ifeoma, with her three children. The household offers a different view of what they faced in their father's house. It practices a completely different form of Catholicism, making for a happy, liberal place that encourages its members to be inquisitive, form their own opinions and speak their minds. Kambili and Jaja become able to voice out their opinions. While at Aunty Ifeoma's house, Kambili also falls in love with a young priest, Father Amadi, which awakens her sense of sexuality.

Unable to cope with Eugene's continual violence any longer, Beatrice poisons him. Jaja takes the blame for the crime inorder to save his mother, and gets locked in the prison. Aunty Ifeoma and her family moves to America after she is unfairly dismissed from her job as a lecturer at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. Purple Hibiscus ends almost three years after these events as Kambili becomes a young woman at eighteen. Her brother Jaja is about to be released from prison, hardened but not broken by his experience there. Their mother, Beatrice, has deteriorated psychologically to a great degree.

Themes and analysis

Colonialism

Aunty Ifeoma, the aunt of Kambili tells her that Eugene is a product of colonialism. She says he reasons like the colonial masters who have ill language. Eugene restrains his children from speaking Igbo.

Trauma and silence

The characters of Purple Hibiscus faces fear in both present and past when Adichie quoted:

I was familiar with fear, yet each time I felt it, it was never the same as the other times, as though it came in different flavors and colors.

Religion

Palm Sunday commemorates the beginning of the Holy Week in the Christian doctrine, and Adichie uses it to show that a new living will come into Eugene’s family in the future. Thoa wrote that lent is a time for reflection on Jesus’ life, suffering, death, and forward to the promise of new life and hope through his resurrection. Similarly, it is seen as same to Kambili and her family to endure before they can experience a new life. Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday represents the symbols of the passion and resurrection.

The novel depicts the seven sacraments, especially Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Eucharist. The sacrament of the Holy Eucharist is shown in the masses celebrated by Father Benedict, Father Amadi, and other priests in Abba. It also includes active participation by Papa and his family, and Aunty Ifeoma and her family. A sub-theme of the cultural absence of the Igbo culture is seen in Kambili's narration, where he narrated Father Benedict's decline of the Igbo language and culture. For instance, he allowed that the Credo and Kyrie should be recited only in Latin and that the rhythmical clapping of hands should be minimal but sustained singing in Igbo, offertory songs.

Reception

In a review by Kirkus Reviews, Adichie was praised for "creating a compelling narrative—and a surprising punch at end." Östgöta Correspondenten wrote, "Purple Hibiscus" is a painfully brutal yet wonderfully moving educational novel about getting up and walking". Again, it praised Adichie writing, "Purple Hibiscus could be a tragic, depressing read at best, but Adichie is the kind of dizzying storyteller who manages to lure the reader further and further into the story, until you can no longer resist. She fills the novel with nuances and colors, scents and flavors, and with cautious hope." Journalist Hephzibah Anderson of The Guardian praises Adichie's focus, writing that it "remains fixed on her heroine, enabling her to express the political in acutely personal terms, telling an intoxicating story that is at once distinctively feminine, African and universal." Sue Arnold, in a review, praised the novel's audio narrator Adjoa Andoh's characterisation of the Kambili, whose confused love/hate relationship with her father underpins the story, is stunning.

In 2004 the novel was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, longlisted for the Booker Prize. It also won the Best Books for Young Adults Award by the Young Adult Library Services Association. It won the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for the Best Debut Fiction. It was listed in 2004 by Telegraph as one of the year's best fiction. In 2005 it won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the Best First Book. It was the winner of the 'One Maryland, One Book' Programme in 2017.

References

Bibliography

• Phan, Thoa (2023). The Impact of Family, Environment, and religion in Purple Hibiscus and Beloved. St. John's Scholar (Masters of Art thesis). New York City: St. John's University. Retrieved 31 January 2025.
• Okolo, Luke (2017). "Thematic and stylistic analysis of Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus". ezenwaohaeto. Retrieved 31 January 2025.
• Amaefule, Adolphus Ekedimma (15 April 2021). "The Roman Catholic Church in Nigeria and Liturgical Inculturation in Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus". Ecclesiology. 17 (1). doi:10.1163/17455316-bja10002. ISSN 1744-1366.

External links

Translations

• Oliveira, Leide Daiane De Almeida; Matos, Naylane Araújo (12 September 2018). "ADICHIE, Chimamanda Ngozi. Hibisco roxo. Tradução de Julia Romeu. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2011, 324 p." Cadernos de Tradução. 38 (3). Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC): 477–486. doi:10.5007/2175-7968.2018v38n3p477. ISSN 2175-7968. Retrieved 24 January 2025.