Ifemelu

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The main character of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah [2013], Ifemelu grows up in Lagos, Nigeria, of Igbo parents. Her mother spreads a cloak of Christianity around herself, attributing all good fortune to God. Her father is devoted, but becomes depressed when he loses his job as a civil servant.

Ifemelu meets Obinze in secondary school. She finds it so natural to talk to him. He is rather quiet, a table tennis champion. They are both Igbo and trust each other. They both go to university in the east, in Nsukka, where Obinze’ mother is a teacher. But when Ifemelu’s aunt moves to the United States, she sponsors Ifemelu, helping her find scholarships to complete her education. 

Ifemelu goes to school near Philadelphia, constantly amazed by her American roommates. She has much trouble finding work, however. Impoverished, she eats rice and beans and keeps to herself. During this period she finds herself answering an ad for helping a tennis coach “relax,” and stops communicating with Obinze. Finally, she finds work as a child care provider in a well-off family. 

Obinze has always studied the United States and wanted to go there, but his visa is denied and instead he goes to London. In England he stays with a cousin, works menial jobs and pays a marriage broker to find him a British wife so that he can get proper papers. Just as he is about to marry, however, he is apprehended and deported back to Lagos. 

Thinking about why Nigerians were so anxious to leave home, Obinze says, of residents of Europe and America, they “understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape from the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness. They would not understand why people like him who were raised well fed and watered, but mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else, were resolved to do dangerous things, illegal things, so as to leave; none of them starving, or raped, or from burned villages, but merely hungry for choice and certainty.”

Back in Lagos, Obinze is at first mortified. He has been devastated by Ifemelu’s silence. But then he becomes attached to a “big” man, simulates wealth and becomes wealthy. Obinze finally marries a beautiful girl, Kosi and they have a daughter.

Ifemelu is courted by a sunny, charming rich relative of the white family she is working for. Curt is full of boyish enthusiasm. He takes Ifemelu hiking, camping and on weekends to Paris, buying her cashmere sweaters. Ifemelu is happy with him, contented, her naturally well-bred self showing through. But then she becomes restless, hungry for a feeling she does not have with Curt.

With Curt’s help she has found a good job as a journalist, but when they split up, she starts a blog, writing about how race appears to someone like her, who comes from outside the country. In Nigeria, Ifemelu had no sense of being “black.” She also meets, and lives with Blaine, a serious black intellectual, a professor at Yale. Blaine is high-minded, a “firm reed of goodness.” He and Ifemelu unite over Barack Obama’s candidacy for president, but once he is elected, Ifemelu decides to return to Lagos. She has been gone 13 years.

Lagos is trashy, hot and humid, but Ifemelu loves being back, feeling nostalgia for all that she has missed. She meets old friends and easily finds a job as a features editor on a women’s magazine. The owner of the magazine wants it to be competitive, but “wholesome.” The interviews are of rich women who boast of their wealth and their children. Ifemelu quits and starts a blog about “the small redemptions of Lagos.”

Finally Obinze and Ifemelu meet. “You haven’t stopped being honest,” he tells her. She is impressed with how understated he is. Despite his wealth, he has no need to dominate. They share their feelings about how “transactional” Nigerian culture is, how bombastic people are. “We have confidence, but no dignity,” Obinze says. They begin an affair, eager to see each other each day. 

Kosi will not let her husband go, however. She insists Obinze’ duty is to his marriage and daughter. His friends suggest he simply act in the old Nigerian way, keeping Ifemelu as a mistress. But Ifemelu is unpredictable and stubborn. Neither of them can act against their natural order. Obinze stops seeing her.

Ifemelu is at peace, nevertheless. She feels at home in Lagos. “She had finally spun herself fully into being.” When, after seven months, Obinze appears at her door, ready to divorce his wife, Ifemelu invites him in.

Ifemelu’s honesty, her natural dignity, seen in her story under so many conditions, reflects that of Adichie herself. Adichie has offered herself and her observations, without taking herself too seriously, to the world in many books and influential TED talks. Though she lives in the United States due to her husband’s work and her daughter, she also spends time in Lagos. I have loved getting to know Ifemelu.