National Identity and Diasporic Experiences in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah and Buchi Emecheta's Second Class Citizen

Student: Daisy Blessing Godwin (Project, 2025)
Department of English Studies
University of Port-Harcourt, Rivers State

Abstract

Diasporic Literature encompasses of the experience of people all around the world who leave their homelands in search of "greener pastures". The search for greener pastures is often perceived as the way out of socio-political dilemma of 21st Century Nigeria, this project explores the issues of National identity and the diasporic experiences of Nigerians living in a foreign land. In discussing Adichie's Americanah (2013) and Emecheta's Second Class Citizen (1974) as Nigerian Diasporic Literature, this study adopts post-colonialism as the theoretical basis for the assessment of how the characters in the selected texts grapple with the issues of race, identity, nostalgia, and alienation in their new homes. In this regard, the study examines the cause and effect relations of the diaspora experience in the texts under study. The study also finds out that their experiences alienate them as the "other" and deprives them of a sense of belonging.

Keywords
Diasporic Race Culture Hybrid Colonialism.
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