Black Africanity and Afro-optimism in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah (2013)

ABSTRACT: One of the phenomena African political authorities have not managed to overcome so far is the mass emigration of Africans of working age to western countries. Most of the emigrants think of the West as an el dorado where they will surely see their dreams come true. So most of them who cannot get a visa, take the illegal routes (the desert or the sea) at the risk of their lives. But once they reach their host countries, they are confronted with many new challenges. These are the main issues which Adichie deals with in Americanah where she has also shown her optimism as to the future of Africa and has urged black Africans, especially those who have been to the West, to take pride in their cultural identity. One may wonder what Adichie‘s motives are for displaying optimism with regard to Africa‘s future and for exhorting black Africans to self-esteem. From a postcolonial perspective, this paper will be about Black Africanity and Afro-optimism in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie‘s Americanah (2013). Based on culture, race and psychology, this study will first analyse the narrator‘s deriding the complex towards the West and the Whites, and then will help examine the author‘s call upon Black Africans to assume their real identity.

KEYWORDS : emigration; cultural; identity; challenges; postcolonial; complex.