Green-Simms Lindsey B. Postcolonial Automobility: Car Culture in West Africa

University of Minnesota Press, 2017. — 262 p. — ISBN: 978-1-5179-0113-4Toward the end of Chimamanda Adichie’s best-­selling novel Americanah (2013), Ifemelu, a Nigerian woman who has just returned to Lagos after over a decade of living in America, sits beside her ex-­boyfriend as they drive to his private club in upscale Victoria Island. Adichie writes that Ifemelu “would remember this moment, sitting beside Obinze in his
Range Rover, stalled in traffic, listening to [Nigerian music]...beside them a shiny Honda, the latest model, and in front of them an ancient Datsun
that looked a hundred years old” (544). The moment is memorable for Ifemelu because she has finally rekindled her romance with Obinze. But it is also memorable for all that it says about the new Lagos that Ifemelu returns to in 2009. The now-­wealthy Obinze has acquired his Range Rover, along with a beautiful house, bank accounts, and a BMW, at a time when the Nigerian middle class is expanding under increased democracy and an array of business opportunities