My dissertation interrogates Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s representation of African women in her literary oeuvre. I argue that her female characters bear witness to intersecting oppressions of African women portraying them as being extremely marginalized at home and lacking achievable alternate homes. This study also interrogates Adichie’s feminist philosophy and posits that she typically agitates for equality for all regardless of sex, gender, race, and/or other defining identities. Lastly, I argue that Adichie uses the practice of the African novel to rewrite the character of African women in African literature where her uniqueness hinges on her interrogation of the place of Africans in contemporary world culture, in turn, uses the novel to critique society’s hierarchies of privilege and oppression and of stereotypical representation of Africa and Africans in the world arena.

Though the Nigerian-Biafran War has been the subject of numerous literary and other artistic representations in the four decades since its conclusion, Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2006 novel Half of a Yellow Sun has recently received tremendous international attention for its treatment of the 1967-1970 conflict. Contrary to the assertions of many critics, the novel’s complex representation of the war functions as much more than a setting for a series of family dramas at the foreground. Providing a counterargument to such readings, which emphasize the personal over the political in Half of a Yellow Sun, this paper will propose and trace a political allegory legible within the characters’ personal relationships and historical circumstances. Specifically, I will argue that the relationship between two protagonists, the twins Olanna and Kainene, aligns with the relationship between (Northern) Nigeria and the Eastern Nigeria, known as Biafra between 1967 and 1970, during its attempt to secede. In the way that Kainene grows emotionally distant from Olanna, eventually stops speaking to her, and suddenly disappears, so Eastern Nigeria increasingly clashed with Northern Nigeria during the early 1960s, seceded as the Republic of Biafra in 1967, and eventually “disappeared” at the end of the war in 1970, as it was absorbed back into Nigeria. Rather than indicating a sense of finality, however, Adichie’s text refuses closure in ways that ultimately suggest an alternative both to the notion that the novel has an apolitical, purely tragic ending, and to dominant narratives about the Biafran secession’s “inevitable” failure. This reading thus intervenes in critical conversations about Half of a Yellow Sun, the Biafran state, and secession and self-determination throughout Africa. If Kainene’s disappearance does not only testify to the tragedies of war, and if her character allegorically corresponds to Biafra, then what political possibilities might her disappearance allow? Does Biafra—and in turn, the possibility of secession—remain at large too? Far from the prevalent scholarly and political rhetoric that relegates Biafra to a narrow three-year time frame, Adichie’s novel conceives of a Biafran existence beyond the pages of some finalized history. / text

Submitted by Roberth Novaes (roberth.novaes@live.com) on 2018-07-10T12:20:39Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Neila Final.pdf: 1526923 bytes, checksum: 29b209fce481457d735edbe37fd50c4d (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Setor de Periódicos (per_macedocosta@ufba.br) on 2018-07-10T18:15:54Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Neila Final.pdf: 1526923 bytes, checksum: 29b209fce481457d735edbe37fd50c4d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-10T18:15:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Neila Final.pdf: 1526923 bytes, checksum: 29b209fce481457d735edbe37fd50c4d (MD5) / Construímos uma leitura da expressão intelectual da escritora nigeriana Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie no intuito de compreender como seus escritos podem contribuir para ampliar e potencializar discussões referentes ao desmantelamento de histórias únicas da África, a subjugação feminina em contexto nigeriano e a impacto dos estigmas raciais na vida cotidiana estadunidense. Dessa maneira, investigamos como essas temáticas aparecem na prática discursiva da autora através de leituras de cenas de suas narrativas literárias, ensaios acadêmicos e ideias proferidas em palestras e entrevistas. Dialogando com outras vozes negras e/ou africanas como Molara Ogundipe (1992); Achille Mbembe (2001;2007) bell hooks (1984; 1992) entre outras, tecemos um caminho possível para uma análise mais plural sobre as muitas histórias contadas por Adichie e pudemos compreender que seus escritos negros surgem e se configuram dentro de um espaço fronteiriço em que ela precisa conciliar a sua vivência entre EUA e Nigéria lindando com todas as implicações que isso possa lhe trazer. Ademais, compreendemos que a autora reconhece as faces de histórias e personagens sem menosprezá-los, incorpora as diferenças e se vale de pertencimentos, conscientizando a urgência da busca de conhecimento do outro e de lugares, enfatizando a fuga do senso comum e da história única. / We build a reading of the intellectual expression of the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in order to understand how her writings can contribute to broaden and strengthen discussions about the dismantling of Africa's unique histories, female subjugation in a Nigerian context and the impact of the racial stigmata in everyday American life. In this way, we investigate how these themes appear in the discursive practice of our author through readings of scenes from her literary narratives, academic essays and ideas delivered in lectures and interviews. Discussing with other black and African voices like Molara Ogundipe (1992); among others, we have woven a possible path for a more plural analysis of the many stories told by Adichie, and we have been able to understand that her black writings arise and form within a frontier space in where she needs to reconcile her experience between the US and Nigeria, bordering on all the implications that this may bring. In addition, we understand that the author recognizes the faces of stories and characters without belittling them, incorporates differences and uses belongings, making aware of the urgency of the search for knowledge of the other and of places, emphasizing the escape of common sense and single stories.

Recently new novels about the Biafra war have appeared, proving the ongoing impact of the Nigerian civil war on writers’ interest, and the importance of memory in our life. For all these reasons, I decided to write the present thesis on how memory function in a literary work. The objective is to analyse the literary representation of the Biafra war, with a special focus on individual and collective memory production through two fictional novels: Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Under the Udala Trees, by Chinelo Okparanta. In analysing the literary representations of Biafra in the light of memory studies, I have identified two levels of memory: literary characters’ memory and writers’ memory. Focusing on the level of the memory of the characters, I explored what the characters remember about the Biafra war both when the war is over and when it is still in progress, and what strategies they use to remember or to forget painful memories of the war.  What emerged through this first level of analysis is how Adichie and Okparanta have offered narratives focused not only on accounts of the war, but also on feelings and emotions. Moreover, the strategies of remembering and of forgetting represent tools of survival, and they are not in a relationship of exclusion. Focusing on the level of writers’ memory, I explored the perspectives used by Adichie and Okparanta to narrate and remember the Biafra war: a perspective from below, focused on ordinary people and on their daily lives; a female perspective which represents a novelty in a literary landscape dominated by male writers; the danger of a single story and its risk to create hegemonic narratives; the fictional perspective as a way to enrich a historical event with suggestive details fruit of writers’ imagination; the Afropolitan perspective and the greater openness of mind of the new generation of African writers.

Submitted by Alice Araujo (alice.caraujo@ufpe.br) on 2018-05-17T23:13:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO Edilma Bezerra Cavalcante.pdf: 676873 bytes, checksum: 81a7756d878aa7ffe760cfe9df2b005a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-05-17T23:13:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO Edilma Bezerra Cavalcante.pdf: 676873 bytes, checksum: 81a7756d878aa7ffe760cfe9df2b005a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-17 / Este trabalho tem como premissa realizar uma leitura-crítica feminista do romance Americanah (2014) de Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie a fim de observar os caminhos percorridos pela personagem Ifemelu, as experiências e os momentos de empoderamento ao longo da narrativa. Para isso nossa sustentação teórica terá como base a Crítica Feminista, com nomes importantes do feminismo negro e pós-colonial como Collins (2002), Gonzáles (1984), Mama (2013), Spivak (2014) e Hooks (2015) e de teóricas dos estudos da mulher e literatura como Schmidt (1999), Oliveira (1991) e Rago (2013). Nossa interpretação prioriza o modo de leitura comprometido com a importância do gênero e suas intersecções com cor e classe como categorias analíticas válidas. Neste sentido, nosso trabalho é o resultado dos sentidos produzidos por uma experiência particular de leitura de um sujeito feminino que lê uma mulher contando a história de outra mulher, em um movimento que se pretende assim mesmo, cíclico, estimulando e valorizando a pesquisa e produção acadêmica das mulheres e sobre as mulheres. / This work is premised perform a feminist critical-reading of the novel Americanah (2014) of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to observe the paths taken by the character Ifemelu, experiences and moments of empowerment throughout the narrative. For this our theoretical support will be based on the Feminist Critique, with important names of black feminism and postcolonial as Collins (2002), Gonzalez (1984), Mama (2013), Spivak (2014) and Hooks (2015) and theoretical of women and literature studies as Schmidt (1999), Oliveira (1991) and Rago (2013). Our interpretation prioritizes reading so committed to the importance of gender and its intersections with color and class as valid analytical categories. In this sense, our work is the result of the senses produced by a particular reading experience of a female subject who reads a woman telling the story of another woman, in a move that is intended anyway, cyclical, stimulating and enhancing the research and production academic women and about women.

M.A. / The Nigeria-Biafra War has elicited a corpus of literature which thematises the hydra-headed problematic of nationhood that embodies ethnicity, politics and history. A recent contribution is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s award-winning Half of a Yellow Sun (henceforth, Yellow Sun) which reveals interesting affinities between Adichie and Chinua Achebe, and suggests the influence of Achebe on her. The centrality of Biafra to these writers (both are of Igbo or ‘Biafran’ extraction) foregrounds concerns about the links between literary production, identity politics and the narrative of the nation. At a time marked by the resurgence of sub-nationalist notions in Nigeria, it becomes fitting to review the growing ‘Biafra discourse’ as enunciated in recent Nigerian fiction. It is argued that in Yellow Sun and Achebe's most recent novel Anthills of the Savannah (henceforth, Anthills) both writers espouse notions of nationhood which privilege the ethnic group mainly through a valorisation of the Igbo people of south-eastern Nigeria who constituted the defunct Biafra republic. This dissertation examines how both novels depict difference and deploy historical revision to fetishise ethnic identity in their enunciation of ethno-nationalism. It also explores the degree to which Yellow Sun may reflect the influence of Anthills, both ideologically and stylistically. In this regard, the study interrogates the peculiar narratological features of both novels. The predominant research method applied is close reading, and the theoretical framework incorporates theories of narratology, influence and intertextuality as well as postcolonial notions of nationalism, historicisation, difference and representation. The study draws significantly on the scholarship of Frederic Jameson, Mieke Bal, Harold Bloom and Imre Szeman among others. Keywords: narratology, nationalism, historicisation, representation, ethnicity, difference, other/otherness/othering, representation, intertextuality, Nigeria, Biafra, civil war.

In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Americanah the young female protagonist is unexpectedly thrown into a life of marginalisation when she migrates from Nigeria to the American East coast. Having grown up in Nigeria her skin colour has neither been an issue nor of consideration to her, but it soon becomes apparent that elsewhere her complexion evokes expectations and functions as a breeding ground for prejudice. The aim of this essay is to discuss the remnants and effects of colonialism in past and present times including how postcolonialism is represented in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Americanah. Additional focus will be placed both on the subaltern’s right to represent and resistance to conform. The intention is to show that through discrimination of minorities, marginalised people are compelled to use mimicry to attain equal status, and thus are forced to compromise their identity. Considering the novel’s protagonist later return to Nigeria, a secondary focus will be placed on the possibility and probability of restoration of one’s identity.

Le thème de la guerre civile au Nigéria de 1967 à 1970, aussi appelée guerre du Biafra reste un thème majeur de la littérature nigériane. Les évènements qui ont amené au conflit au lendemain de l’indépendance du pays montrent une période post-coloniale encore marquée par les maux de la construction nationale des anciennes colonies que sont le régionalisme, la religion et le problème ethnique. La fin du conflit en 1970 inaugure une ère de mutation des problèmes d’avant la guerre qui perdurent avec la succession des différents régimes au pouvoir. De plus, le conflit devient un sujet tabou à effacer des mémoires autant que de la mémoire collective nigeriane.Après la première vague des écrivains à majorité Igbo qui ont écrit sur le conflit, tels que Chukwuemeka Ike avec Sunset at Dawn (1979), Buchi Emecheta (1983), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reprend le thème de cette guerre sans apologie. Cette nouvelle façon d’écrire le sujet de la guerre du Biafra se veut thérapeutique et réconciliatrice.Ce travail analyse le traitement de la guerre du Biafra à travers le prisme de la Déesse Mammy Water, divinité de la cosmologie Igbo. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie appartient à la communauté Igbo. / The theme of the Nigerian civil war which lasted from 1967 to 1970, also called the Biafra war remains one of the major theme of the nigerian literature. The events that led to the war after the country’s independance point to a post-colonial period where national building is still worked up on along ethnic and religious lines. In 1970, the end of the conflict starts a new era still affected by all the issues that led to the war still visible in the different regimes leading the federation. Moreover, the conflict became a taboo topic that needed to be erased from individual as well as the nigerian collective memory.After the first wave of writers mainly from Igbo descent who wrote about the war such as Chukwuemeka Ike with Sunset at Dawn (1979), Buchi Emecheta (1983), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie takes up the theme of the war unapologetically. Her way of writing the war ultimately wants to be the therapeutical and inclusive for all nigerians.This study analyzes the Biafran war through the prism of Mammy Water, the water goddess in the Igbo cosmology. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie belongs to the Igbo community.

É possível afirmar que a produção literária de qualquer sistema social dialoga com o contexto histórico, cultural, econômico e político dentro do qual está inscrita, e tal contexto, por sua vez, também dialoga e reage a essa produção definindo um constante movimento sistêmico. Tais imbricações entre literatura e contexto social incidem na construção das personagens, muitas vezes, mobilizadas, nos textos literários, pela construção de suas próprias identidades e em tensão não só com o contexto social dentro do qual vão sendo inscritas, mas também e, inevitavelmente, com as demais personagens que integram a narrativa ficcional. É a partir desses movimentos entre a constituição das personagens, suas identidades e seus respectivos contextos sociais que os romances, O Sétimo Juramento, da escritora moçambicana Paulina Chiziane e, Hibisco Roxo, da escritora nigeriana Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie serão analisados. Tendo por base conjunturas históricas cujas especificidades estão demarcadas, Moçambique e Nigéria, é que as personagens femininas dos romances de Adichie e de Chiziane serão aproximadas e se distanciarão entre si, mas, continuamente em tensão, confrontam o universo masculino. Essas personagens acabam por ascender nessas narrativas ficcionais como mulheres que vislumbram rupturas de sistemas sócio-político-econômico-culturais e acabam por desencadear, sobretudo, novas relações plurais de identidade. Em ambos os romances, de maneira confluente, a dinâmica das tramas reside na movimentação, transformação e ação das personagens femininas que se redescobrem na pluralidade de sua constituição como seres humanos e plenas de possibilidades concretas e objetivas de transformação social para conferirem diferentes saídas para as sociedades de classes, historicamente, opressoras, machistas, patriarcais e opressivas. / It is possible to affirm that the literary production of any social system dialogues with the historical, cultural, economic and political context within which it is inscribed, and that context, in turn, also dialogues and reacts to this production defining a constant systemic movement. Such imbrications between literature and social context focus on the construction of the characters, often mobilized in literary texts, for the construction of their own identities and in tension not only with the social context within which they are being inscribed but also and, inevitably, with the other characters that integrate the fictional narrative. It is from these movements between the constitution of the characters, their identities and their respective social contexts that the novels, O Sétimo Juramento, by the Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane and, Purple Hibiscus, by the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will be analyzed. Based on historical conjunctures whose specificities are demarcated, Mozambique and Nigeria, is that the female characters of Adichie and Chiziane novels will approximate and distance themselves from each other, but continually in tension, they confront the masculine universe. These characters end up ascending in these fictional narratives as women who envisage ruptures of socio-political-economic-cultural systems and end up triggering, above all, new plural relations of identity. In both novels, in a confluent way, the dynamics of the plot lies in the movement, transformation and action of the female characters who rediscover themselves in the plurality of their constitution as human beings and full of concrete and objective possibilities of social transformation to give different exits to the class societies, historically, oppressive, macho, patriarchal and oppressive.

É possível afirmar que a produção literária de qualquer sistema social dialoga com o contexto histórico, cultural, econômico e político dentro do qual está inscrita, e tal contexto, por sua vez, também dialoga e reage a essa produção definindo um constante movimento sistêmico. Tais imbricações entre literatura e contexto social incidem na construção das personagens, muitas vezes, mobilizadas, nos textos literários, pela construção de suas próprias identidades e em tensão não só com o contexto social dentro do qual vão sendo inscritas, mas também e, inevitavelmente, com as demais personagens que integram a narrativa ficcional. É a partir desses movimentos entre a constituição das personagens, suas identidades e seus respectivos contextos sociais que os romances, O Sétimo Juramento, da escritora moçambicana Paulina Chiziane e, Hibisco Roxo, da escritora nigeriana Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie serão analisados. Tendo por base conjunturas históricas cujas especificidades estão demarcadas, Moçambique e Nigéria, é que as personagens femininas dos romances de Adichie e de Chiziane serão aproximadas e se distanciarão entre si, mas, continuamente em tensão, confrontam o universo masculino. Essas personagens acabam por ascender nessas narrativas ficcionais como mulheres que vislumbram rupturas de sistemas sócio-político-econômico-culturais e acabam por desencadear, sobretudo, novas relações plurais de identidade. Em ambos os romances, de maneira confluente, a dinâmica das tramas reside na movimentação, transformação e ação das personagens femininas que se redescobrem na pluralidade de sua constituição como seres humanos e plenas de possibilidades concretas e objetivas de transformação social para conferirem diferentes saídas para as sociedades de classes, historicamente, opressoras, machistas, patriarcais e opressivas. / It is possible to affirm that the literary production of any social system dialogues with the historical, cultural, economic and political context within which it is inscribed, and that context, in turn, also dialogues and reacts to this production defining a constant systemic movement. Such imbrications between literature and social context focus on the construction of the characters, often mobilized in literary texts, for the construction of their own identities and in tension not only with the social context within which they are being inscribed but also and, inevitably, with the other characters that integrate the fictional narrative. It is from these movements between the constitution of the characters, their identities and their respective social contexts that the novels, O Sétimo Juramento, by the Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane and, Purple Hibiscus, by the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will be analyzed. Based on historical conjunctures whose specificities are demarcated, Mozambique and Nigeria, is that the female characters of Adichie and Chiziane novels will approximate and distance themselves from each other, but continually in tension, they confront the masculine universe. These characters end up ascending in these fictional narratives as women who envisage ruptures of socio-political-economic-cultural systems and end up triggering, above all, new plural relations of identity. In both novels, in a confluent way, the dynamics of the plot lies in the movement, transformation and action of the female characters who rediscover themselves in the plurality of their constitution as human beings and full of concrete and objective possibilities of social transformation to give different exits to the class societies, historically, oppressive, macho, patriarchal and oppressive.