‘Art is despair with dignity’

Purple Hibiscus Paperback

Purple Hibiscus

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The limits of fifteen-year-old Kambili’s world are defined by the high walls of her family estate and the dictates of her repressive and fanatically religious father. Her life is regulated by schedules: prayer, sleep, study, and more prayer.

When Nigeria begins to fall apart during a military coup, Kambili’s father, involved mysteriously in the political crisis, sends Kambili and her brother away to live with their aunt. In this house, full of energy and laughter, she discovers life and love – and a terrible, bruising secret deep within her family.

Centring on the promise of freedom and the pain and exhilaration of adolescence, ‘Purple Hibiscus’ is the extraordinary debut of a remarkable new talent.

Reviews of Purple Hibiscus

  • ‘A beautiful and often harrowing story.’ Observer Books of the Year

    ‘A sensitive and touching story of a child exposed too early to religious intolerance and the uglier side of the Nigerian state.’ J. M. Coetzee

    ‘Political brutality and domestic violence, religion and witchcraft all merge with subtle force in this memorable novel. Chimammanda Ngozi Adichie uses childhood innocence to write Nigerian history with the eye of a family insider.’ Hugo Hamilton

    ‘“Purple Hibiscus” is the best debut I’ve read since Arundhati Roy’s “The God of Small Things”.’ Jason Cowley, Times journalist, literary editor of the New Statesman

    ‘This debut ensnares the reader from the first page and lingers in the memory…in soft, searing voice, Adichie examines the complexities of family, faith and country through the haunted but hopeful eyes of a young girl on the cusp of womanhood.’ Publishers Weekly

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