It attempts to shed light on violence and oppression directed to both male and female characters in the novel. Therefore, this article explores the issue of gender violence in Chimamamnda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus because of religious fanaticism and African culture. Besides, she represents the impact of religious fanaticism on family relations as well as how education and knowledge are pivotal in empowerment and enlightenment.

Chimamamnda Adichie, being a prominent feminist activist, addresses the issue of gender violence with regard to such factors and focuses on domestic violence. Factors such as patriarchy, culture, religion, and colonial education have contributed to violence and conflict. This is, definitely, because gender violence became an everyday phenomenon in different societies, and had increasingly dominated social issues. She has received honorary doctorate degrees from Eastern Connecticut State University, Johns Hopkins University, Haverford College, Williams College, the University of Edinburgh, Duke University, Amherst College, Bowdoin College, SOAS University of London, American University, Georgetown University, Yale University, Rhode Island School of Design, Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, Skidmore College and University of Johannesburg.The issue of gender violence has become a novel field of study in literature and cultural studies particularly with the emergence of feminist movement in the twentieth century. In 2008, she received a MacArthur Fellowship. She was awarded a Hodder fellowship at Princeton University for the 2005-2006 academic year, and a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University for the 2011-2012 academic year.

She has a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Arts degree in African History from Yale University. She graduated summa cum laude from Eastern Connecticut State University with a degree in Communication and Political Science. She studied medicine for a year at Nsukka and then left for the US at the age of 19 to continue her education on a different path. She grew up on the campus of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where her father was a professor and her mother was the first female Registrar. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in Enugu, Nigeria in 1977.

Purple hibiscus 2003