BOOK REVIEW (PURPLE HIBISCUS)
A Critical Appraisal of a Book
I. Author
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born on 15 September 1977 in Enugu, Nigeria,
the fifth of six children to Igbo parents, Grace Ifeoma and James Nwoye Adichie. While
the family's ancestral hometown is Abba in Anambra State, Chimamanda grew up in
Nsukka, in the house formerly occupied by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe.
Chimamanda's father, who is now retired, worked at the University of Nigeria, located in
Nsukka. He was Nigeria's first professor of statistics, and later became Deputy Vice-
Chancellor of the University. Her mother was the first female registrar at the same
institution.
Chimamanda completed her secondary education at the University's school,
receiving several academic prizes. She went on to study medicine and pharmacy at the
University of Nigeria for a year and a half. During this period, she edited The Compass,
a magazine run by the University's Catholic medical students.
At the age of nineteen, Chimamanda left for the United States. She gained a
scholarship to study communication at Drexel University in Philadelphia for two years,
and she went on to pursue a degree in communication and political science at Eastern
Connecticut State University.
Chimamanda graduated summa cum laude from Eastern in 2001, and then
completed a master's degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
It is during her senior year at Eastern that she started working on her first novel, Purple
Hibiscus, which was released in October 2003. The book has received wide critical
acclaim: it was shortlisted for the Orange Fiction Prize (2004) and was awarded the
Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (2005).
Her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun (also the title of one of her short stories),
is set before and during the Biafran War. It was published in August 2006 in the United
Kingdom and in September 2006 in the United States. Like Purple Hibiscus, it has also
been released in Nigeria.
Her collection of short stories, The Thing around Your Neck, was published in
2009. Chimamanda says her next major literary project will focus on the Nigerian
immigrant experience in the United States.
Chimamanda is now married and divides her time between Nigeria, where she
regularly teaches writing workshops, and the United States.
, II. Brief Summary
The novel is told through the eyes of a 15 year old Kambili. She has an older
brother called Jaja who is 17years old. These two children belong to a well-
endowed family living in Enugu with their parents, Eugene and Beatrice. Their father
is a wealthy business man and a religious zealot. Their “papa” has an overbearing
hand which usually metes out severe punishments for minor transgressions, leaving
them with wake physical and emotional scars. It is not only them who receive
mistreatment from their father, but also their mother, Beatrice, which results to her
several miscarriages. Despite this violence, their Mother, is still a resilient and an
obedient wife, while, them, on the other still continues to be the best in school
because that is what their father expects them to be.
However, something has changed when Kambili, Jaja together with their parents
travel to Abba one December holiday to celebrate Christmas. There, they meet
Aunty Ifeoma together with their cousins, Amaka, Obiora and Chima. Aunty Ifeoma
is a strong-willed woman who breaks most of the irrelevant rules his brother Eugene
has imposed. When the two eventually visit Aunty Ifeoma's house in Nsukka, they
discover that the place is a different world. They learned that there is more to living
than wealth as they see their Aunty Ifeoma raising her three children with the little
money she have.
Also, in Nsukka, the two children discover who they really are. Jaja blossoms
while Kambili begins to open up when she meets Father Amadi. Father Amadi
encourages Kambili to speak her mind in which he learns that it is possible to think
for oneself. Moreover, they were able to share a home with their Papa Nnukwu
whom their papa is angry because he doesn’t want to be a Catholic. Kambili
witnesses her grandfather’s morning ritual of innocence. She sees the beauty in this
ritual and begins to understand that the difference between herself and Papa-
Nnukwu is not so great.
A few days later, Mama unable to cope with Eugene’s continual violence,
poisons him. Jaja takes the blame for the crime and ends up in prison. In the
meantime, Aunty Ifeoma and her family go to America to live after she is unfairly
dismissed from her job as lecturer at the University of Nigeria.
The novel ends almost three years after the events just described, on a
cautiously optimistic note. Kambili has become a young woman of eighteen, more
confident than before, while her brother Jaja is about to be released from prison,
hardened but not broken by his experience there. Their mother, Beatrice, having
deteriorated psychologically to a great degree, shows small signs of improvement. In
essence, a better future is possible for them all, though exactly what it might involve
A Critical Appraisal of a Book
I. Author
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born on 15 September 1977 in Enugu, Nigeria,
the fifth of six children to Igbo parents, Grace Ifeoma and James Nwoye Adichie. While
the family's ancestral hometown is Abba in Anambra State, Chimamanda grew up in
Nsukka, in the house formerly occupied by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe.
Chimamanda's father, who is now retired, worked at the University of Nigeria, located in
Nsukka. He was Nigeria's first professor of statistics, and later became Deputy Vice-
Chancellor of the University. Her mother was the first female registrar at the same
institution.
Chimamanda completed her secondary education at the University's school,
receiving several academic prizes. She went on to study medicine and pharmacy at the
University of Nigeria for a year and a half. During this period, she edited The Compass,
a magazine run by the University's Catholic medical students.
At the age of nineteen, Chimamanda left for the United States. She gained a
scholarship to study communication at Drexel University in Philadelphia for two years,
and she went on to pursue a degree in communication and political science at Eastern
Connecticut State University.
Chimamanda graduated summa cum laude from Eastern in 2001, and then
completed a master's degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
It is during her senior year at Eastern that she started working on her first novel, Purple
Hibiscus, which was released in October 2003. The book has received wide critical
acclaim: it was shortlisted for the Orange Fiction Prize (2004) and was awarded the
Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (2005).
Her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun (also the title of one of her short stories),
is set before and during the Biafran War. It was published in August 2006 in the United
Kingdom and in September 2006 in the United States. Like Purple Hibiscus, it has also
been released in Nigeria.
Her collection of short stories, The Thing around Your Neck, was published in
2009. Chimamanda says her next major literary project will focus on the Nigerian
immigrant experience in the United States.
Chimamanda is now married and divides her time between Nigeria, where she
regularly teaches writing workshops, and the United States.
, II. Brief Summary
The novel is told through the eyes of a 15 year old Kambili. She has an older
brother called Jaja who is 17years old. These two children belong to a well-
endowed family living in Enugu with their parents, Eugene and Beatrice. Their father
is a wealthy business man and a religious zealot. Their “papa” has an overbearing
hand which usually metes out severe punishments for minor transgressions, leaving
them with wake physical and emotional scars. It is not only them who receive
mistreatment from their father, but also their mother, Beatrice, which results to her
several miscarriages. Despite this violence, their Mother, is still a resilient and an
obedient wife, while, them, on the other still continues to be the best in school
because that is what their father expects them to be.
However, something has changed when Kambili, Jaja together with their parents
travel to Abba one December holiday to celebrate Christmas. There, they meet
Aunty Ifeoma together with their cousins, Amaka, Obiora and Chima. Aunty Ifeoma
is a strong-willed woman who breaks most of the irrelevant rules his brother Eugene
has imposed. When the two eventually visit Aunty Ifeoma's house in Nsukka, they
discover that the place is a different world. They learned that there is more to living
than wealth as they see their Aunty Ifeoma raising her three children with the little
money she have.
Also, in Nsukka, the two children discover who they really are. Jaja blossoms
while Kambili begins to open up when she meets Father Amadi. Father Amadi
encourages Kambili to speak her mind in which he learns that it is possible to think
for oneself. Moreover, they were able to share a home with their Papa Nnukwu
whom their papa is angry because he doesn’t want to be a Catholic. Kambili
witnesses her grandfather’s morning ritual of innocence. She sees the beauty in this
ritual and begins to understand that the difference between herself and Papa-
Nnukwu is not so great.
A few days later, Mama unable to cope with Eugene’s continual violence,
poisons him. Jaja takes the blame for the crime and ends up in prison. In the
meantime, Aunty Ifeoma and her family go to America to live after she is unfairly
dismissed from her job as lecturer at the University of Nigeria.
The novel ends almost three years after the events just described, on a
cautiously optimistic note. Kambili has become a young woman of eighteen, more
confident than before, while her brother Jaja is about to be released from prison,
hardened but not broken by his experience there. Their mother, Beatrice, having
deteriorated psychologically to a great degree, shows small signs of improvement. In
essence, a better future is possible for them all, though exactly what it might involve
