Nigerian Literature
This page covers Nigeria literature. McKee Library's collection includes numerous titles by Nigerian authors. We have included a selection of these titles in our reading list, linked below.
- Nigerian Literature Reading ListAn Nigerian literature reading list. This is not an exhaustive list, rather a list of titles available in McKee Library's collection.
Research and Reference
- Chimamanada Adichie: Credo ReferenceA Credo Reference landing page on Chimamanda Adichie.
- The Four Generations: Nigerian Literature, the Booker Prize and BeyondWhen Chinua Achebe published Things Fall Apart, everything changed. Nigerian literature owes a lot to that originary, almost fabled moment - but there is much more to this ever-evolving story…
- Nigerian Literature: BritannicaA Nigerian literature topic page from Britannica.
- Nigerian Literature: Credo ReferenceA Credo Reference reading list on Nigerian literature.
Streaming Media
- Chinua Achebe: African Literature as Celebration"Writers don’t give prescriptions, they give headaches." Uncompromising yet nonpartisan in his views on politics and writing, Chinua Achebe—author, editor, and literary critic—ceaselessly explores the collision of European and indigenous African cultures. In this classic lecture, the well-known ambassador of African literature delivers a thought-provoking introduction to the world-class writing that has come forth from Nigeria and other African countries during the latter half of the 20th century. (52 minutes)
- Half of a Yellow SunOlanna (Thandie Newton) and Kainene (Anika Noni Rose) are glamorous twins from a wealthy Nigerian family. Upon returning to a privileged city life in newly independent 1960s Nigeria after their expensive English education, the two women make very different choices. Olanna shocks her family by going to live with her lover, the “revolutionary professor” Odenigbo (Oscar-winner, Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his devoted houseboy Ugwu (John Boyega) in the dusty university town of Nsukka; Kainene turns out to be a fiercely successful businesswoman when she takes over the family interests, and surprises even herself when she falls in love with Richard (Joseph Mawle), an English writer.
- Nigerian ClassicChinua Achebe’s "Things Fall Apart" has been translated into more than 50 languages and sold more than 15 million copies. It follows the tragic fall of a village hero who stands up against 19th century Christian missionaries. Distributed by PBS Distribution.
Author's Works & Perspectives
Things Fall Apart
THINGS FALL APART tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around Okonkwo, a "strong man" of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first of these stories traces Okonkwo's fall from grace with the tribal world in which he lives, and in its classical purity of line and economical beauty it provides us with a powerful fable about the immemorial conflict between the individual and society. The second story, which is as modern as the first is ancient, and which elevates the book to a tragic plane, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries. These twin dramas are perfectly harmonized, and they are modulated by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul. THINGS FALL APART is the most illuminating and permanent monument we have to the modern African experience as seen from within.
The Thing Around Your Neck
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie burst onto the literary scene with her remarkable debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, which critics hailed as “one of the best novels to come out of Africa in years” (Baltimore Sun), with “prose as lush as the Nigerian landscape that it powerfully evokes” (The Boston Globe); The Washington Post called her “the twenty-first-century daughter of Chinua Achebe.” Her award-winning Half of a Yellow Sun became an instant classic upon its publication three years later, once again putting her tremendous gifts—graceful storytelling, knowing compassion, and fierce insight into her characters’ hearts—on display. Now, in her most intimate and seamlessly crafted work to date, Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but America, in twelve dazzling stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States. In “A Private Experience,” a medical student hides from a violent riot with a poor Muslim woman whose dignity and faith force her to confront the realities and fears she’s been pushing away. In “Tomorrow is Too Far,” a woman unlocks the devastating secret that surrounds her brother’s death. The young mother at the center of “Imitation” finds her comfortable life in Philadelphia threatened when she learns that her husband has moved his mistress into their Lagos home. And the title story depicts the choking loneliness of a Nigerian girl who moves to an America that turns out to be nothing like the country she expected; though falling in love brings her desires nearly within reach, a death in her homeland forces her to reexamine them. Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, these stories map, with Adichie’s signature emotional wisdom, the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them. The Thing Around Your Neck is a resounding confirmation of the prodigious literary powers of one of our most essential writers.
Critical Perspectives on Amos Tutuola
Amos Tutuola is one of Africa's most controversial authors. The reviews and essays in this volume are grouped chronologically to allow the reader to follow Tutuola's literary career and his unsteady journey to respectability.
Half of a Yellow Sun
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST * From the award-winning, bestselling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists--a haunting story of love and war. * Recipient of the Women's Prize for Fiction "Winner of Winners" award. With effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor's beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover's charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna's willful twin sister Kainene. Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war.
We Should All Be Feminists
In this personal, eloquently-argued essay--adapted from her much-admired TEDx talk of the same name--Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, award-winning author of Americanah, offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century, one rooted in inclusion and awareness. Drawing extensively on her own experiences and her deep understanding of the often masked realities of sexual politics, here is one remarkable author's exploration of what it means to be a woman now--and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.