MIGRANT ILLUSIONS IN SEFI ATTA’S THE BAD IMMIGRANT AND IRENE MUCHEMI-NDIRITU’S LUCKY GIRL

Migrant illusion in contemporary African prose fiction functions as a conceptual prism through which the intersections between aspiration, displacement, and lived reality are explored. Migration in African literary studies has been widely examined through realities of displacement, alienation, identity, and socio-economic struggle, yet much of the existing scholarship has prioritised structural and cultural explanations at the expense of the psychological processes that shape migrants’ expectations and experiences. Consequently, this study addresses this gap by analysing causes and effects of migrant illusion, the narrative strategies employed by the authors in depicting migrant illusions. The study is grounded in postcolonial theory and migration theory, drawing on concepts such as hybridity, unhomeliness, and aspiration-driven mobility to interpret the migrant experience. Sefi Atta’s The Bad Immigrant and Irene Muchemi- Ndiritu’s Lucky Girl were purposively selected based on their in-depth representations of migrant illusion. The texts were subjected to textual analysis. Migrant illusion in The Bad Immigrant and Lucky Girl is shown to arise from a network of interrelated factors that shape characters’ expectations before departure. In both novels, these include economic insecurity and limited opportunities in the homeland, the idealisation of Western spaces as sites of prosperity and stability, family and communal pressures that equate migration with success, and selective diaspora narratives that mask hardship. In The Bad Immigrant, these causes are closely tied to economic precarity, educational uncertainty, and the enduring illusion of the American Dream, while Lucky Girl foregrounds gendered aspirations for personal freedom, emotional fulfilment, and selfrealisation. The collapse of these expectations produces significant psychological and emotional effects across both texts, notably disillusionment, anxiety, emotional exhaustion, and fragmented identity, compounded by the fear of appearing unsuccessful to families and communities at home. Atta’s novel further highlights the impact of legal insecurity, racialisation, and social invisibility on the migrant psyche, whereas Muchemi-Ndiritu emphasises emotional isolation, relational instability, and the persistence of patriarchal constraints within the diaspora. These experiences are articulated through carefully deployed narrative strategies: Atta relies on irony, satire, and social realism to expose the contradictions of migrant life, while Muchemi-Ndiritu employs introspection, memory, and fragmented temporality to trace the gradual unraveling of migrant expectations. A comparative analysis of the two texts shows that, despite their shared engagement with migrant illusion, differences in narrative style and contextual focus yield varied interpretations of migrant experience. vi By interrogating the motif of migrant illusions, these novels foreground the reality of migrants. The novels present that migration is not as a linear movement toward fulfilment but an ambivalent process marked by psychological negotiation and partial belonging. By centring the interior lives of migrant characters, the research extends critical discussions of African migration narratives beyond material conditions to include the emotional and psychological costs embedded in contemporary experiences of mobility.