Fiction: 'Things started to fall apart at home when my brother . . . did not go to communion and Papa flung his heavy missal across the rooms and broke the figurines . . ."
The opening line suggests that we are about to visit familiar territory. And this coming-of-age novel, narrated by the teenage daughter of a rigid patriarch who forces his family to recite the rosary as they drive from their city mansion to their country manor in his Mercedes and whose grace before meals lasts for at least 20 minutes, may remind Irish readers in some ways of, say, John McGahern's Amongst Women. Papa Eugene, the most striking character in the novel, is a respected, rich and powerful man in the community and indeed nationally, a pillar of the Church. At home he is a sadistic tyrant.
The novel, though, is located in Africa, and while the Catholic Church, politics and patriarchy are set against paganism, domesticity and femininity in a familiar oppositional pattern, the mood is more intense and dangerous than in any similar Irish story. Set against the backdrop of post-colonial Nigeria in the grip of a military coup, it is at one level the simple story of the need of two children to escape from the grip of a father who showers them with sentimental affection but considers it necessary to break his son's finger when he fails to come first in an examination. This family story could however be read as an allegory for the political situation; the children and their martyr-ish mother move from a state of disempowered victimhood to personal independence, a status symbolised by the purple hibiscus of the title (purple hibiscus is a rare flower). The novel, while intensely realistic in many ways, has the characteristics of a fable.
The voice of the narrator, Kambili, is deadpan and understated: terrible events in the home and the nation are recounted in the same quiet monotone she employs to let us know what she ate for breakfast: "The day after the coup, before we left for evening benediction at St Agnes', we sat in the living room and read the newspapers." This passive tone, in which she puts up with everything that comes her way, lends a subdued power to the narrative, contrasting effectively with its lively content.
On the other hand, one might complain that the resulting language is somewhat flat. But the straightforward windowpane prose is much enlivened by a generous sprinkling of words and phrases from the second language of the family, Igbo, and with the references to flowers, foods, places - hibiscus, okporoko, Nsukka.
A second quibble might be that the novel, in its dramatic intensity, lacks shade. And occasionally - as in the nemesis of the father, emotionally satisfactory as it may be - it risks slipping into sensationalism. The love-hate dynamic which binds the family to the calculatingly abusive father is presented with keen psychological insight, but although there are references to his own hard childhood, in which he abandoned his language and family and embraced the culture of the religious and political colonisers, he has, essentially, the shape of an ogre.
These are minor reservations. Adichie, who is an extremely young writer, has an enviable mastery of narrative composition. Her characters are vivid. Her pacing is excellent. She has a keen sense of irony: Papa, who tortures his family, is the recipient of an Amnesty award for the courageous opinions expressed in the newspaper he owns. Into her enthralling tale Adichie weaves complex themes concerning public and private morality, post-colonialism, language, tradition and modernity, gender. The result is a story which is racy but complex and stimulating. It grips the reader from start to finish. I could not put it down. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: this name is new, and hard to spell, but I think we will learn it soon enough. She is a very clever novelist indeed.
• Éilis Ní Dhuibhne is a novelist and short story writer. Her latest book is Cailíní Beaga Ghleann na mBláth, Cló Cois Life, 2003