(Ім)міграція та їжа у романі Ч. Н. Едічі «Американа»

Abstract

The importance of food as a material object in fictional texts has attracted attention of literary scholars. The interest in the materiality of food helps to analyze the historical and cultural contexts, described in literary works. Moreover, the physicality of food in literature and the way of its consumption leads to a better understanding of individual and collective identities. Food and its rituals constitute the significant part in migratory novels. Customs and traditions surrounding food provide the unity of immigrant communities threatened by the disconnection from a native country. Communal dining ensures the affirmative experience of foreigners in host countries. The focus of this article is concentrated on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel ‘Americanah’ (2013). Food and food-related practices presented in the novel disclose several problematic layers: globalization and food, soul food and immigration, food and class, food and a migrant’s identity. As the narrative evolves the main protagonists go through their emigration from Nigeria to the USA and Great Britain. They experience new tastes and dishes in host countries as well as new cultural and racial realities. Soon they realize that their idealized images of the West do not have correlatives in the reality. The hardships and frustrations of immigrant life led them to either deportation or reverse migration. One of the main characters, Ifemelu, after thirteen years of living in the USA, comes back to Nigeria. The narrative discloses the possibility for her to assume an identity that is both “American” and ethnic at the same time. The rigid dichotomy between Americanness and racial Otherness is overcome through the mixing of tastes and culinary preferences.