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Book Reviewed by:Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria in the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed.
A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as “the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe,” Half of a Yellow Sun re-creates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria in the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed.
With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor’s beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.
Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race—and the ways in which love can complicate them all. Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise and the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place, bringing us one of the most powerful, dramatic, and intensely emotional pictures of modern Africa that we have ever had.
Excerpt
Half a Yellow Sun
Master was a little crazy; he had spent too many years reading books
overseas, talked to himself in his office, did not always return
greetings, and had too much hair. Ugwu's aunty said this in a low voice
as they walked on the path. "But he is a good man," she added. "And as
long as you work well, you will eat well. You will even eat meat every
day." She stopped to spit; the saliva left her mouth with a sucking
sound and landed on the grass.
Ugwu did not believe that anybody, not even this master he was going to live with, ate meat every day.
He did not disagree with his aunty, though, because he was too choked
with expectation, too busy imagining his new life away from the
village. They had been walking for a while now, since they got off the
lorry at the motor park, and the afternoon sun burned the back of his
neck. But he did not mind. He was prepared to walk hours more in even
hotter sun. He had never seen anything like the streets that ...
Women's Prize
2007
Adichie delivers a searing, never dry, history lesson packaged into a strong and deeply effecting, even sensuous, story seen primarily through the eyes of the wealthy and well connected twin sisters Olanna and Kainene, and the particularly compelling character of Ugwu, the 13-year-old peasant houseboy of a radical university professor...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Binyavanga Wainaina, author of Discovering Home, founder of the journal Kwani, and winner of The Caine Prize for African Writing
Astonishing . . . fierce and beautifully written. Chimamanda continues to lead
us from the front with her powerful new book. So much of the experience of our
generation of Africans is about how we find ourselves reacting to our times
based on wars and battles and events that we know little about, but which
continue to define us. We need to take control of our history, so we can manage
our present. And it is this idea that is the inspiration behind this novel . . .
. Half of a Yellow Sun is honest and cutting, and always, always human,
always loving . . . . It is a pleasure to read Chimamanda’s crisp, resonant
prose. We see how every person's belonging is contested in a new nation; find
out that nobility of purpose has no currency in this contest; how powerfully we
can love; how easily we can kill; how human we can be when a war dedicates
itself to stripping our humanity from us. Half of a Yellow Sun is
ambitious, impeccably researched . . . Penetrating . . . epic and confident.
Adichie refuses to look away. Chinua Achebe
We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie knows what is at stake, and what to do about it. Her experimentation with the dual mandate of English and Igbo in perennial discourse is a case in point. Timid and less competent writers would avoid the complication altogether, but Adichie embraces it because her story needs it. She is fearless, or she would not have taken on the intimidating horror of Nigeria's civil war. Adichie came almost fully made.Located on the west coast of Africa,
Nigeria (map)
is the most populous country in Africa
(~122 million in an area about double
that of California). It became a
state in 1960 when it declared its
independence from Britain. In 1966 a
series of coups and counter coups
started that continued until 1999 (other
than for a short lived "second republic"
from 1979-1983) when democracy was
regained.
It was believed that the January 1966
coup was initiated by Igbo officers (the
Igbo or Ibo are one of the largest
ethnic groups in Africa ...
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