Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's three novels

[jserraglio]

Americanah, Half of a Yellow Sun, and Purple Hibiscus -- big books but I read them all over the past week.

Her novels, like those of Dickens, Dostoyevsky and Kafka, immerse the reader into their fictional worlds, worlds that, far from being hermetically sealed, impinge on our everyday world.

In my view, Ms. Ngozi Adichie is a contemporary master of the first rank.

My favorite of these three great novels is Purple Hibiscus (2003):

Told in the 1st person from the POV of a vulnerable, shy 15-year-old Igbo girl, Kambili, oppressed, repressed and abused (abused along with her beloved older brother Jaja and their mother Beatrice) by Eugene, their fanatically rigid Catholic father who also fearlessly advocates what later became Biafran independence. Particularly moving is the portrait of Father Amadi, a Catholic priest who befriends Kambili. Some readers have seen Amadi's interaction with a minor teenage girl as inappropriate, but, despite their obvious mutual attraction, I think their relationship is fundamentally innocent.

This exquisite tragic novel tore my heart out.