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HIV/AIDS in Nigerian Fiction: Felix Ogoanah's The Return of Ameze and Ifeoma Theodore Jnr, E.'s Trapped in Oblivion

Abstract This article examines the representation of HIV/AIDS in Nigerian fiction. Despite the scourge of the disease in Nigeria, the most prominent fictional titles have tended to be silent on the subject. Depictions of the disease appear in fiction published and circulated chiefly within the confines of the country. This article focuses on Felix N. Ogoanah's The Return of Ameze (2007, Ibadan: Evans Brothers) and Ifeoma Theodore Jnr, E.'s Trapped in Oblivion (2014, Lagos: KEE). Reading the novels as young adult fiction, it argues that they partake in the figuration of HIV/AIDS as a disease that animates the binary of innocence and guilt. Going beyond the typical apportioning of blame across dichotomous gender lines, Ogoanah's and Theodore Jnr, E's works call attention to the culpability of adults in rendering adolescents vulnerable to the disease. HIV/AIDS appears as a variable in the increasingly complex world within which adolescents define themselves. This is a world where norms and values are in flux and, depending on how the transition to adulthood is negotiated, HIV/AIDS in the texts becomes a death sentence, a warning, or a life-altering interruption in an already chaotic process of self-definition.