This is a book about African fiction, published within the last decade, by a younger generation of exciting new talent. They are Biyi Bandele, Leila Aboulela, Jamal Mahjoub, Moses Isegawa and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Their novels are The Street (1999), The Translator (1999), The Carrier (1998), Abyssinian Chronicles (2000), Purple Hibiscus (2004) and Half of a Yellow Sun (2006). They are all writers who have either migrated, or who have spent time studying and writing outside of the African countries in which they were born or grew up. These countries are Nigeria (Bandele and Adichie), Sudan (Aboulela and Mahjoub) and Uganda (Isegawa). I examine how these novelists, from across Africa, who have migrated away, find ways of manipulating the English language in order to depict the realities of their multiple worlds and languages.

I have included two novels by Adichie for two reasons. Firstly, she has created a stir on the literary scene with her talent and originality. Her second novel, especially, has been widely publicised and read and has won the prestigious Orange Broadband Prize for fiction. In a book that examines new fiction by young writers, both of her novels deserve a place. Secondly, and more importantly, the contrast between the two novels vividly illustrates the point that I make in this book. I will be demonstrating the difficulties that Half of a Yellow Sun gets into, as it increasingly fights its battles on a metaphoric front.