Postmigration Disillusionment in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Jude Dibia’s Unbridled

Abstract

This paper examines the representation of the diaspora experience in Adichie’s Americanah and Dibia’s Unbridled. It presents the selected texts as creative endeavors that juxtapose the fantasies and realities of migration by Nigerians across Europe and America. Using the Postcolonial tenet of “otherness”, this study scrutinizes instances of postmigration disillusionment in the selected texts through a contrastive assessment of the “here” and “there”, “home” and “abroad”, “developed” and “underdeveloped”, etc. The aim of the study is to demonstrate that literature offers a critical insight into the challenges that confront Nigerians in the diaspora. The textual analysis reveals that migration is triggered by the social, political and economic instability in the country. It is also the outcome of bad leadership within postcolonial Nigeria. The escapist approach to these challenges as captured in both texts is a massive relocation of young people who hope for a better life in Europe and America. The texts also illustrate how the high expectations of these migrants are cut short upon arrival in the diaspora and the plethora of new realities that they are exposed to in Europe and America especially as Blacks in a White dominated environment. The paper finds that their eventual choices are, however, not choices of convenience but a case of choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea.