CONTENT WARNING: Themes of self-harm and suicide

I Could Sing And The Whole World Could Be My Stage

I do not know whether to say that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie saved me or to ascribe it to God as we always do in Nigeria. When we studied so hard and passed an exam, we say it was God who did it. When we make a strategic business move and make huge profits we say it is God that brought the money. When we fall sick and take a proper medication we say God brought the healing. It is popular in Nigeria for Nigerian hospitals to display on their signboards: We take care, but only God heals. And then all the Nigerian celebrities and politicians would take it to the next level when being interviewed on the achievements of their lives. The summary of the interviews is mostly always the same:

All my success is because of God.

There’s nothing God cannot do.

If you put your faith in God, He will do everything for you.

Even the interviewers ask breezy questions that require breezy answers. For many Nigerian celebrities and politicians, depth and nuance are things to totally avoid. Let’s not even talk about the mega rich pastors who own branches of churches all over the country sponsored by church members. When these super rich pastors are interviewed, they say they are prospering because they are obedient to God, and so every other person who is suffering should check very well whether they are obedient to God. They never talk about the support and sponsorships they receive from well-meaning individuals who worship in these churches.

Many Nigerians are very good in hiding their mediocrities under the grand cloak of religion and God. Our politicians too, when they come in public to address the masses one simply has to prepare oneself to hear the word God used too often, too deliberately, because the majority of the masses can be deceived with the idea that God is in control, even when it’s very clear to see that men aren’t doing the things they should do. Nigerians are less critical of you when you show off the aura of being godly or God-sent. And then one would wonder why Nigeria isn’t moving forward with all our too-polished belief in God. One would wonder why elections are rigged and the God-loving people are eager to take bribes and close their mouths. The same God-loving and godly people sees white and then label it black.

I’m not saying that God cannot do or does not do all the things Nigerians ascribe to Him in everyday conversations, especially in public; I’m simply saying that we Nigerians actually want God to do everything for us, even when God cannot do everything for us. He has given us a brain to go about with the affairs of our lives, but because many Nigerians want everything to be about God, they do not like to draw a line between what God does and what we as human beings are capable of doing, and should be doing. When it is time to speak out collectively against injustices, the God-loving people keep quiet and go about their normal businesses. When people are killed and chased away from their villages by bandits and terrorists, the God-loving people do nothing. The government of those God-loving people does nothing too. When it is time to elect a new Governor or President the God-loving people are always very eager to sell their votes in exchange for a bag of rice or wads of crisp one-thousand-naira notes, fresh from the bank.

If I’m talking to a religious Nigerian it would be very improper to say that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie saved me. The religious Nigerian would get offended. “Are you out of your mind? Only God can save you!” they would say.

But the truth is that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie saved me, picked me up from a dark pit, washed me clean, and laid me on a nice bed to recover, with the words she had written. When I went through my years of wild depression, it was Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who sat beside me and comforted me. Nobody else knew what was happening to me, that I had suicidal thoughts. No one knew of the restlessness in my spirit, that I was fighting with death. I don’t think I would have survived that period had I not read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novels, had I not immersed myself in her fiction. I read her books over and over again. I had gone into the market and bought the books with my savings: Purple Hibiscus, Half Of A Yellow Sun, Americanah, The Thing Around Your Neck. I read them as though somebody prescribed to me that reading her novels would help to heal my mind. It wouldn’t have been any other novels because I had read many novels before I encountered Purple Hibiscus. It was after I read Purple Hibiscus that I went into the market for the first time to look for all the books written by the same author. I had never done that before, and my sudden compulsion to buy this author’s books surprised me. The only disadvantage, if there was one, was that all the money I had saved at the time disappeared into the hands of booksellers in the market.

I consider Purple Hibiscus the most powerful book I have ever read because it opened the door so I could discover the beautiful and magical world of fiction. Perhaps everyone going through a mental difficulty should find a particular fiction writer they love and immerse themselves in the writer’s world. Perhaps it would help, but I’m not so sure. That I was healed and saved by fiction doesn’t necessarily mean it would save everyone with mental illness in the world. I think I was lucky to have listened to the voice of the universe to know what would save me at that particular time, to ease myself into what would heal my mind and restore my mental peace. I was able to capture this atmosphere in my poem, “No One’s Going To Help You” published on Cajun Mutt Press in the United States.

My struggle with mental illness was the most horrible thing I have experienced in my life, a thing that no human being should go through. During that period I often ran into the toilet and cried for hours. The tears were the tears of helplessness. I wanted to disappear from the world, but I didn’t know how. It happened very easily in movies, but in my own real life I realised that movies were too exaggerated. When I slept in the night, I asked God to press on the delete button of my life, wherever the delete button was. I was tired of living, but God did not do what I asked Him to do.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s books became the pillars I could rest my back on. No pastor laid hands on me. I did not pray and fast for long days as religious Nigerians often do so that God would answer their prayers faster. I did not sleep in the church for many days waiting for healing, and that is why I’m a bit confused whether to say it in the Nigerian way – that I was saved by God. Or whether to say it bluntly: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s books healed me. For cases of mental illness, Nigerians would understand better if you say that you prayed and fasted for weeks, then an angel of God appeared in your dream and said “You are healed” and then you became healed. To ascribe your healing to fiction and the author of that fiction would sound sacrilegious in the ears of the vast majority of Nigerians, especially the too-religious ones. They would see it as sharing God’s glory with a human being.

Mental illness in Nigeria in itself isn’t something people talk about as they should. It’s considered demonic in most cases. A demon must have possessed you, and only the power of God could chase the demon away. Nobody talks about the yearnings of the human soul such as safety and love. Nobody talks about the fact that the absence of safety and love can shatter the essence of a human being. You do not need to have a demon to be depressed, to have clinical depression like mine that lasted for about three full years. It’s part of the human condition, that sometimes people fall into darknesses they don’t understand, especially when love becomes conditional. It was in those years that I grew very cold towards the world and embraced books and silence to survive.

I read Purple Hibiscus the most during those terrible years, followed by Half Of A Yellow Sun. Then Americanah. Then the collection of short stories. The books made me see and imagine different worlds, to know that there was a girl somewhere who didn’t actually have a voice, just in the same way that I was voiceless. In Purple Hibiscus the character of Kambili made me understand that somebody else went through confusions and silencing and trauma just like me. In Half Of A Yellow Sun I discovered the gigantic history of Biafra that nobody talked about in Nigeria. In Americanah I saw a Nigerian woman trying to understand the complexities of race in America, and what it meant not to be white in America. I was deeply comforted by the stories, and I think that was when something began to correct in my psyche: I felt I could strive to become somebody. I could do something useful in the world. I could speak to the world. I could rise above pain and sorrows. I felt like a free bird. I could sing, and the whole world could be my stage.

Even now, I still reread Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novels, though not as often as I did in those years. I’m currently slowly rereading Americanah; it’s been a year since I last read it. Dream Count, the fourth novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, came out in March 2025, and now, March 2026, I’m reading it for the third time and grabbing new meanings, and this is the author’s most sophisticated book. She’s a marvellous storyteller, and when a storyteller fights your inner wars with the words she had written then that storyteller and her stories are worth telling the world about. And I’m free to say that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie saved me.

Isaac Aju is a Nigerian Pushcart Prize nominee. He’s appeared on Poetry X Hunger, Kalahari Review, Flapper Press, Asemana Magazine and All Your Poems Anthology. He lives in Nigeria where he also works as a fashion designer