Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This article uses Adichie’s Americanah as a backdrop to interrogate the difficulties of the life of African immigrants in the United States, and individual and collective perception of self and other. Using the postulates of Julia Kristeva in Strangers to Ourselves and Paul Ricoeur’s treatment of the question of alterity in Oneself as Another, it discloses the multifarious experiences of the immigrants, in their hearwrenching endeavors to adapt their cultural heritage to the realities in the receiving countries. Adichie’s Americanah offers a thorough glimpse into the intricacies and tribulations of the “self” meeting and living with the “other”, in the diaspora and back into Africa. The narrative brings the reader to experiment, with the character-immigrants, the quest for a better future but also the disillusionment stirred by the truth of life in the host country. The analysis reflects on the motives for subjectivities and rejection of the foreigner, to demonstrate the strategies invented by the latter to translate cultural differences, transcend xenophobic attitudes and assume a bicultural identity.