If you haven’t read any of Chimamanda Adichie’s work, then this is an excellent place to start. Half Of A Yellow Sun is a must-read for anyone wanting to gain an insight into Nigeria’s recent past.
Half Of A Yellow Sun follows the intersecting lives of several characters as they are variously caught up in Nigeria’s Biafran War. There is Ugwu, the houseboy with a thirst for learning, Odenigbo or “Master”, a lecturer with a passion for politics; and twin sisters Olanna and Kainene, and her English husband Richard, whose lives could not be more different. No one, no matter how privileged, is left untouched by the grasp of war.
Through the lives of ordinary people, we learn about a war that so many of us shamefully know so little about. Loyalties are tested, families divided, and even the most honourable characters have deep flaws that make them all the more human. But, perhaps most relevant to our lives today, is the idea that continuity cannot be taken for granted.
Even at the beginning of the novel, there is a subtle sense of society unraveling, a degradation emerging from the longstanding tensions between people thrown together and deemed one African state in the continent’s colonial past. Later, as the struggle for Biafran independence reaches its zenith, people are forced to reexamine their lives as they are broken apart by ethnic divisions and resentment. Yet, although the book deals with such powerful themes, it is the small details in Adichie’s writing that make you really take stock, and feel like you have had your eyes truly opened.
Buy the book here.
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