Purple Hibiscus

Fifteen-year-old Kambili’s world is circumscribed by the high walls and frangipani trees of her family compound. Her wealthy Catholic father, under whose shadow Kambili lives, while generous and politically active in the community, is repressive and fanatically religious at home.

When Nigeria begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili’s father sends her and her brother away to stay with their aunt, a University professor, whose house is noisy and full of laughter. There, Kambili and her brother discover a life and love beyond the confines of their father’s authority.

The visit will lift the silence from their world and, in time, give rise to devotion and defiance that reveal themselves in profound and unexpected ways. This is a book about the promise of freedom; about the blurred lines between childhood and adulthood; between love and hatred; between the old gods and the new.

Purple Hibiscus is licensed for publication in 28 languages.

Awards | Distinction

Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (Best Debut Fiction Category), 2004

Commonwealth Writers’ Prize: Best First Book (Africa), 2005

Commonwealth Writers’ Prize: Best First Book (overall), 2005

“One Maryland, One Book” selection, 2017

Praises for Purple Hibiscus

  • "Prose as lush as the Nigerian landscape that it powerfully evokes...Adichie's understanding of a young girl's heart is so acute that her story ultimately rises above its setting and makes her little part of Nigeria seem as close and vivid as Eudora Welty's Mississippi."

    - The Boston Globe

  • "In a 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. Lush, cadenced and often disconcerting, this is an accomplished first effort."

    - Publishers Weekly

  • "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

  • "A breathtaking debut...[Adichie] is very much the 21st-century daughter of that other great Igbo novelist, Chinua Achebe."

    - The Washington Post Book World

  • "The author's straightforward prose captures the tragic riddle of a man who has made an unquestionably positive contribution to the lives of strangers while abandoning the needs of those who are closest to him.

    - The New York Times Book Review