Racism And Identity In Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy (1977) And Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah (2013)

Résumé: This dissertation is a comparative study between Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy (1977) and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah (2013). The aim of this research is to show the effects of migration on Black African immigrants and to shed light on the racism faced by the blacks in the host land, besides to how their identity construction is affected by stereotypes and social structures, focusing on the two protagonists Sissie and Ifemelu and other secondary characters. To reach our purpose, we have relied on Stuart Hall, Frantz Fanon and Kobena Mercer theories of identity and racism. At first, we have explored the issue of identity crisis in America and Europe through Our Sister Killjoy and Americanah. We have focused on Sissie and Ifemelu’s identity struggles and their suffering from being black in a white society. Similarly, in the second chapter we studied the black African immigrants’ experience of racism in Europe and America through Our Sister Killjoy (1977) and Americanah as the first obstacle that Sissie and Ifemelu have to face in constructing their identity. Thus, after studying the two selected novels we have come to conclusion even though Aidoo and Adichie belongs to two different African countries and generations, they share common attitudes toward racism and identity construction.

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