Americanah: Translating Three Countries into English and the Afropolitan Consciousness (original) (raw)

This article aims to address translation through a post/neo-colonial lens, that is, as a metaphor for the interpretation of culture, race, gender and class in colonized subjects. The case of Nigeria exemplifies such dynamics of colonization and traumatic decolonization. The first part of the essay deals with postcolonial theories of translation, particularly Taiye Selasi's Afropolitan theory in relation to Nigeria, its history and the contemporary diaspora of young Africans to the United States and Britain. I analyze Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie's last novel, Americanah, as a textual space that lays bare the impact of cultural translation, the enduring wounds of colonialism and new possibilities of healing.