Purple Hibiscus

Purple Hibiscus

First edition cover (2003)
Author	Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Language	English
Published	30 October 2003 (30 October 2003)
Publisher	Algonquin Books
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (paperback)
Pages	307
ISBN	9780007189885
Dewey Decimal	823.92
Followed by	Half of a Yellow Sun

Purple Hibiscus is a novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, first published in the United State by Algonquin Books in 2003. It recounts the story of Kambili Achike, a young teenager who struggles in the hands of her father Eugene, a rich businessman and devout Catholic. He violently abuses his family and the wife Beatrice would later poison him. Kambili's brother, Jaja, takes the blame inorder to protect his mother and gets the life imprisonment.

Adichie wrote Purple Hibiscus during her university education at Eastern Connecticut State University. A feminist work, she set the novel in a post-colonial Nigeria. Purple Hibiscus was a coming of age story that captured abuse and explored many themes: marriage, family and religion. Its first edition gained commercial success and positive reviews by critics. It also won several awards, Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in 2005 among them.

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.

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 was a well-established author with two works - Decisions (1997) and 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 24 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.

Themes

Purple Hibiscus explores several themes that are central to the story. One of the primary themes is the struggle for identity and autonomy in a patriarchal society.

Ezeigbo calls the protagonist Kambili as a symbol of the repressed voices of women in Nigerian. Through Kambili's narration, Adichie highlights the tension between traditional Igbo culture and modernity, as well as the complexities of female identity in a society dominated by men. Followed by the impact of colonialism and post-colonialism on Nigerian society, Adichie critiques the legacy of colonialism, which has led to a cultural identity crisis in Nigeria. Eugene, Kambili's father, represents the complexities of post-colonial identity, as he struggles to reconcile his Igbo heritage with his strict Catholic faith.

The novel also explores the theme of silence and voice. Kambili's silence is a metaphor for the repression of women's voices in Nigeria. Her journey shows how silence can be both a form of oppression and a means of resistance. The theme of family and relationships is central to the novel. Adichie portrays the complexities of family dynamics in Nigerian culture, highlighting the tensions between tradition and modernity.

Purple Hibiscus explores the theme of religion; it 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.

Critical 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

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.