Christ-figures in modern Anglophone West African fiction: Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and the Church in West Africa today

Abstract

ABSTRACT Over the years, a good number of West African fiction writers in English, influenced, as it were, by several factors, but especially, by their Christian background, have come up, in their works, with characters fashioned in the image and likeness of the biblical Christ, otherwise, Christ-figures. This paper, in the first place, looks at how, through the characters, Jaja, Papa-Nnukwu and Father Amadi, the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, continues, in her novel, Purple Hibiscus, the aforementioned tradition. It then considers the implications that the said Christ-figures in Purple Hibiscus hold for the contemporary Church in Anglophone West Africa. It is hoped that the paper will remain an invaluable addition to current efforts at deepening the relationship existing between religion, in this case, Christianity, and Anglophone modern West African creative literature.