LITERARY REPRESENTATIONS OF HOME, BELONGING AND UNBELONGING IN AMAMANDA ADICHIE’S ‘MIGRANT BILDUNGSROMAN’, AMERICANAH
LITERARY REPRESENTATIONS OF HOME, BELONGING AND UNBELONGING IN AMAMANDA ADICHIE’S ‘MIGRANT BILDUNGSROMAN’, AMERICANAH

Summary/Abstract: By drawing on recent critical debates on home and identity, the aim of this article is to explore literary representations of the various facets of what it means to feel ‘at home’ – or, not to feel at home, for that matter – in a place, whether it be in one’s place of origin or an adopted country of residence. The focus of my investigation will be one of the most representative novels on this topic, Americanah (2013), by award-winning Nigerian-American writer, Amamanda Ngozi Adichie. A prominent exemplar of diasporic literature that grapples with the complexities of belonging, unbelonging, and change, the novel shows that ‘home’ is never an uncomplicated matter. I argue that Adichie’s mastery relies in refraining from either romanticising or lamenting homeland and/or life abroad: the writer’s authorial position is, simultaneously, that of an ‘insider looking out’ and that of an ‘outsider looking in’.

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