Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Purple Hibiscus is Adichie's first novel, but the last work of hers I've read. Reading it confirmed to me she was a huge talent right out of the gate and that she doesn't have one bad book among her oeuvre.
Hibiscus is set in Nigeria in an undefined period during which there is a sudden military coup. It's told from the point of Kambili during a roughly three year period from the ages of 15 to 17. Kambili is the overly sheltered daughter of an extremely wealthy and religious man. Her father is respected outside the family, but Kambili both loves and deeply fears him because he is incredibly abusive, with him often telling her the abuse is punishment for her own good. His strictness and abuse also leaves her completely isolated from her peers and completely dependent on him.
Her life changes when her father is finally persuaded to let her spend some time with his sister and her children, whom Kambili and her brother barely know due to their father's controlling behaviour. At her aunt's house Kambili is exposed to the worst of what the military coup has done to Nigeria but she also is able to get to know and learn to love her family for the first time.
It's a very classic coming of age plot but what makes it work so well is Adichie's ability to understand and convey the complex intricacies of family abuse. While Kambili's father does horrible things Adichie also is able to make it believable that Kambili geuninely loves him and wants to please him and that he is a good, kind and honourable man outside of his family.
Hibiscus is set in Nigeria in an undefined period during which there is a sudden military coup. It's told from the point of Kambili during a roughly three year period from the ages of 15 to 17. Kambili is the overly sheltered daughter of an extremely wealthy and religious man. Her father is respected outside the family, but Kambili both loves and deeply fears him because he is incredibly abusive, with him often telling her the abuse is punishment for her own good. His strictness and abuse also leaves her completely isolated from her peers and completely dependent on him.
Her life changes when her father is finally persuaded to let her spend some time with his sister and her children, whom Kambili and her brother barely know due to their father's controlling behaviour. At her aunt's house Kambili is exposed to the worst of what the military coup has done to Nigeria but she also is able to get to know and learn to love her family for the first time.
It's a very classic coming of age plot but what makes it work so well is Adichie's ability to understand and convey the complex intricacies of family abuse. While Kambili's father does horrible things Adichie also is able to make it believable that Kambili geuninely loves him and wants to please him and that he is a good, kind and honourable man outside of his family.