"Apollo" is a short story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It originally appeared in The New Yorker on April 6, 2015. The story would later be republished as the very first selection in The Best American Short Stories of 2016.
"Apollo" is the tale of a privileged upper middle-class Nigerian boy learning about Bruce Lee, conjunctivitis, and class distinction. Bonding over Bruce Lee movies with a slightly older houseboy of considerably lower social status employed by his snobbish parents, the narrator and the houseboy ultimately become so close that they share a case of contagious pinkeye. This is the medical condition which gives the story its title. Conjunctivitis comes to be known as "Apollo" because of an outbreak that coincided with one of NASA's Apollo space missions.
While working on a literal level, the story is really about "Apollo" on a symbolic level. This is a story told in recollection long after the main events it portrays. The Apollo condition becomes a metaphor for the infection of class consciousness and awareness which the boy's parents try desperately to quarantine him against. While successful in the present-day of the flashback, it becomes quite apparent that this quarantine was a long-term failure. The older version of the boy who is the narrative voice situates himself as distinctly more progressive than his parents.
"Apollo" belongs to that class of short fiction which appears to be a very slight work pursuing no grand themes or complex ideas. On its surface, it is just a little tale about a young boy given the opportunity to transcend the socio-economic limitations his parents have placed upon him. He is afforded the chance to rise to the challenge of putting friend above station only to fail this test of courage. The ambitions of the story really only come into sharp focus upon closer scrutiny in the present-day of the older narrator visiting his now-elderly parents and learning of the downturn in the life of the houseboy in the years since the Apollo incident.
This story joins the author's other highly praised works that offer insight into a national culture—Nigeria—with which most readers will likely be unfamiliar. Despite this, however, "Apollo" has proven to have a universality to it that has made it quite popular in the years since it first hit magazine stands.
