“You’re black”: Transnational perceptions of race in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Andrea Levy’s Small Island
2017; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 59; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/00111619.2017.1369387
ISSN1939-9138
Autores Tópico(s)African history and culture studies
ResumoThis essay analyzes how race—and, specifically, the idea of “blackness”—circulates in two contemporary novels. In reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Andrea Levy’s Small Island comparatively, this essay argues that the term “black” is not a stable signifier of race, but materially and geographically contingent. The transnational mobility of the two female protagonists in these novels uncovers the variableness in perceptions of racial differences. This slippage reveals the connections between racialized and national identity and demonstrates the necessity of linking the two, while simultaneously relying on race as way to demarcate the limits of national belonging.
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