“Purple Hibiscus” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)

Favourite Quote

Some months ago, he wrote that he did not want me to seek the whys, because there are some things that happen for which we can formulate no whys, for which whys simply do not exist and, perhaps, are not necessary.

Synopsis

Fifteen year-old Kambili lives in fear of her father, a charismatic yet violent Catholic patriarch who, although generous and well respected in the community, is repressive and fanatically religious at home. Escape and discovery of a new, liberated way of life come when Nigeria is shaken by a military coup, forcing Kambili and her brother to live at their aunt’s home, a noisy place full of laughter. The visit will lift the silence from her world and, in time, unlock a terrible, bruising secret at the heart of her family life. An extraordinary debut, “Purple Hibiscus” is a novel about the blurred lines between the old gods and the new, childhood and adulthood, love and hatred – the grey spaces in which truths are revealed and true living is begun.

Nicola’s Book Club reading list

Season 1 (Feb – Jun 2005)
“Oracle Night” by Paul Auster (U.S.)
“Purple Hibiscus” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
“Snow” by Orhan” Pamuk (Turkey)
“Empress Orchid” by Anchee Min (China) *
“The Way to Paradise” by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)

* The book club favourite
In italics, Nicola’s Coup de Cœur

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Nicola had the pleasure of welcoming Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to her bookshop in Brussels in March 2006 for a book signing of her first novel “Purple Hibiscus”. Readers were delighted to meet this talented young author at the start of what would turn out to be a highly successful career as an international writer. From this first novel, it was clear to us all that she was a powerful storyteller whose books moved you to the core. We subsequently read “Half of a Yellow Sun” in our Creative Reading Group in March 2008.