Black Feminism: A Study of Chiamamanda Ngozi’s Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun

Abstract

Chimamanda Ngozi in her novels Americanah and Half of A Yellow Sun unravels the anguish of African female immigrants as well as African females living in their own land in the process of cultural modification and conformation. She argues that people are not conscious of their belonging to the black race until they get in touch with a culture where their colour and lineage makes them different from others. The textual analysis of the novels divulges the comportments which unearth how gender and race-based issues cause trouble to the black women, both at home and in the diaspora. The close reading of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun in the context of the phenomenon of African Feminism does not only permit for the chance to explore the minds of African females, whether they be the colonized natives or immigrants but also to inspect the interrelatedness that exists between gender and race–a close association that unfairly tosses the black women to the lowest point in society. The study also adumbrates the need to acknowledge the diversity of feminist agenda. It shows how through the portrayal of powerful female characters a generic sense of Black women’s strength is infused, broadly. The textual resistance surfacing in Ngozi’s works generates an alternative realization of Black women, which is more accomplished, self-aware and prudent. The study also adumbrates the need to acknowledge the diversity of feminist agenda. This all encompassing, sensitive to differences, feminist version makes the very concept relevant to more lives than White, middle-class, northern hemispheric women only, which in turn strengthens the feminist cause.