Decolonizing Christianities in Contemporary Nigerian Literature

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In African literature, Christianity has long been represented as a foreign religion, associated with the history and ongoing legacies of European colonialism and mission. But in recent decades, writers have begun to engage with it in more complex, ambivalent, and at times liberatory ways that are reflective of the religion’s tremendous growth and diverse transformations across the continent.

Adriaan van Klinken addresses this literary shift in the context of Nigeria, a major center of literary production and Christian growth on the continent. Through close dialogue with works by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Okey Ndibe, Chinelo Okparanta, and others, van Klinken probes the lived and imagined experiences of Catholicism, Evangelicalism, and Pentecostalism across Nigeria in the wake of decolonization. Taking Nigerian literary writers seriously as social and religious thinkers, van Klinken puts their novels into conversation with the works of major African theologians, philosophers, and social theorists. By foregrounding the creative theologizing that fiction writing participates in, this book demonstrates how these literary texts—beyond merely representing and critiquing sociopolitical realities—also take part in envisioning the alternative worldmaking potential of Christian traditions in the Nigerian context.

“Van Klinken shows that contemporary Nigerian literature reflects the plurality and publicness of Nigerian Christianity, critiques its coloniality and exclusions, and reimagines more humane futures within and beyond it. That is the book’s real achievement. It shows that literature is not merely adjacent to the study of African Christianity. It is one of the places where Christianity is already being thought through, struggled over, and morally tested…. This is an ambitious and valuable monograph.”—Claire P. Ayelotan, Reading Religion

“Decolonizing Christianities in Contemporary Nigerian Literature demonstrates that Nigerian literature not only represents Christianity but also actively participates in its reinterpretation. By emphasizing plurality, [Van] Klinken challenges homogenizing narratives and creates space for understanding difference without resorting to demonization. His work advocates for treating literature as a foundation for theological and cultural analysis. The book stands as a significant scholarly contribution and an invitation for further research at the intersection of African literature, religion, and critical theory.”—Elizabeth Olayiwola, Journal of the African Literature Association

“Adriaan van Klinken’s book breaks new critical ground. He brings a keen, probing intellect to the task of dissecting the provocative and fascinating ways in which Nigerian literature is shaped by, and reshapes, traditions of Christianity. Van Klinken’s is a consistently absorbing and indispensable critical account.”—Okey Ndibe, author of Foreign Gods, Inc.

“This is a textured intellectual contribution to our understanding of Christianity through a decolonial framework. By drawing on works by eminent Nigerian literary writers, it presents a rich compendium of the lived and imagined experiences of Christian adherents during the decolonization era. The book is a serious attempt that foregrounds literary and religious scholarship, offering a new understanding of Christian traditions in the larger context of Nigeria’s religious body politic. There is no better time to have such a book than now.”—Toyin Falola, The Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin

“This is a superb book. It enfleshes Christianity in Nigeria by ‘inter-reading’ contemporary novels with the work of theologians and critical theorists from the African continent. Van Klinken reveals how public intellectuals provide a thoughtful and nuanced engagement with the prominence of Christianity in their country. In engaging prose, he offers students of religion and literature a fresh way of studying their subjects.”—Emma Wild-Wood, University of Edinburgh

“In this brilliant book, literature functions as a source for theological reflection, fodder for social ethical debates, and transcripts of theopoetics. With careful reasoning, multidisciplinary methodology, and ethical sensitivity, Adriaan van Klinken brings Nigerian twenty-first-century literature into the theological academy. Any scholar serious about discerning or grasping the full breadth of Nigerian theology or social ethics must read this book.”—Nimi Wariboko, author of Social Ethics and Governance in Contemporary African Writing: Literature, Philosophy, and the Nigerian World

“Adriaan van Klinken delivers a brilliant contribution to African Christianity and its interrelated disciplines of literature, social ethics, and history. The path he charts here is one that future scholars will be following for a while.”—Abimbola Adelakun, author of Powerful Devices: Prayer and the Political Praxis of Spiritual Warfare

“A bold, ambitious, and original exploration of Christianity and African literary texts. It meticulously puts religion in its proper place in African literary history.”—Simon Gikandi, author of Slavery and the Culture of Taste

Adriaan van Klinken is Professor of Religion and African Studies at the University of Leeds and Extraordinary Professor in the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, University of the Western Cape. He is the author of Kenyan, Christian, Queer: Religion, LGBT Activism, and Arts of Resistance in Africa and Transforming Masculinities in African Christianity: Gender Controversies in Times of AIDS, the former also published by Penn State University Press.

Literary Studies

Religious Studies & Religion

           African Religions

           Comparative Religions

           Religion

Africana Studies