Book Snapshot: Purple Hibiscus

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

An extraordinary coming-of-age story. Kambili, her brother and their mother have all the luxuries their successful and influential father can provide. In the community he is seen as pious, generous and a voice of the people, but at home he is an explosive, dominant figure who demands complete submission and obedience. Kambili's fear and trauma is palpable. Throughout the text I held my breath and felt her choking. I desperately wished something would give Kambili the courage to stop trying to justify the abuse. The repression and lack of self-worth is disturbing. The dysfunction of the family is so real; it is frightening. This doesn't feel like fiction, it feels like something many of us have known. Stylistically, the writing is stellar. Adichie does get everything right: tone, pacing, characterization and language.

The novel received the Commonwealth Writers Prize. The “Washington Post Book World” called it, “a breathtaking debut.... .[Adichie] is very much the 21st-century daughter of that other great Igbo novelist, Chinua Achebe.” The “Boston Globe” said, “Adichie’s understanding of a young girl’s heart is so acute that her story ultimately rises above its setting and makes her little part of Nigeria seem as close and vivid as Eudora Welty’s Mississippi.”

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