Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We are close to finding out whether that long and resonant name will be one to remember or just another flash in the pan. Young Ms. Adichie set many readers back on their heels a few years ago with her stunning (perhaps autobiographical?) novel Purple Hibiscus. It was the story of a teenaged Nigerian girl torn between her devotion to her strictly Catholic father and her grandfather, who still practiced an ancient animist religion. All set during political upheavals in Nigeria, the story had it all -- great characters, an interesting setting, absorbing personal conflicts, a plot that moved constantly forward, and the wonderful overarching symbol of purple hibiscus growing in wild profusion in the family's yard.

It's interesting that I didn't really understand what a symbol of youthful rebellion the purple hibiscus was until I recently re-read Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire. In it he makes the point that cultures on all continents have had an appreciation of the beauty of flowers, what he calls a 'floriculture,' except for Africa. Africans, for many of whom subsistence is still a way of life, can't afford to extol flowers. As Pollan notes, when Africans write about flowers, ' . . . it is with an eye to the promise of fruit, rather than of the thing itself.' Thus Adichie's purple hibiscus is understood as frivolous, wasteful, and rebellious.

Purple Hibiscus was three years ago. Adichie's second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, is due out soon. It deals to an even greater extent with the Nigerian Civil War of the late 1960's, and should put this young author's skills to the test. I await it with glee.

It also serves to remind me how much I count on authors from all over the world to keep me in good literature. Perhaps there was a time when you could read only the books written in your own country and consider yourself well read, but I fear that time has long passed. I probably read as many books in translation from authors in Europe, Asia, Africa and the rest of the world as I do books written in the United States. I’d be interested to hear what authors other people like to read in translation.