ABSTRACT
Conflicts can impact food production and foodways in numerous respects, from the displacement of people from farms or fishing areas to destruction or theft of foodstores. Hunger is often used to discipline populations and individuals, and food distribution can be a way to create loyalty. This chapter focuses on a novel that takes place during the Biafran War, Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English by Ken Saro-Wiwa, and a novel set in the chaotic Nigeria of the 1990s, Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and a novel set during the Zimbabwean Chimurenga and in its aftermath, The Stone Virgins by Yvonne Vera. Each book explores Adichie's "questions about what it means to be human" and the impact of violence on domesticity because of war, coups, and their aftermath. Forced to produce foreign-exchange earning crops to pay off unpayable debts, African nations find themselves importing more and more food.
