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- Title
Writing a New Reputation: Liminality and Bicultural Identity in Chimamanda Adichie's Americanah.
- Authors
Amonyeze, Chinenye
- Abstract
Turner's liminality describes a phase in social life wherein the confrontation between activity which has no structure and its structured results produces in men their highest pitch of self-consciousness. Ifemelu is one of the faces of America's growing youth immigrants whose liminal state is suspended between social structures in a state of continuous transition. The article examines Chimamanda Adichie's modern mythic characters as positive models of Nigerian immigration responding to negative racial stereotypes. The essay analyzes how Americanah, as a fiction of reputation management, renegotiates image rights of immigrants and minorities on a humanistic template engendering social compact of respect and mutual understanding. Adichie's redemptive narrative stresses the bicultural fix of economic exiles, affirming vision of a new cultural space for Africans at home and in the Diaspora. Focusing on the survival and agency of Black immigrants, Adichie advocates immigrants' proud avowal of their bicultural identity in a neo-colonial space.
- Publication
SAGE Open, 2017, Vol 7, Issue 2, p1
- ISSN
2158-2440
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/2158244017712773