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Wordplay: Half of a Yellow Sun
Sun fuses character, conflict
By Lindsay Wilson
lwilso55@mscd.edu

Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie $24.95

In the late ’60s, while the United States was embroiled in the Vietnam War, another war was raging in Africa. The Nigerian Civil War began in 1967 when the Igbo people of eastern Nigeria seceded to form the independent nation of Biafra; what followed was a brutal and devastating war that claimed an estimated 3 million lives by 1970.

Highly acclaimed Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has eloquently captured this harrowing period in African history in her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun.

Adichie tells the compelling story of the period before and during the war through five evocative characters. There’s Ugwu, a village boy who becomes the devoted houseboy to Odenigbo, a revolutionary professor and fierce Biafran nationalist. Olanna, the daughter of a wealthy Igbo businessman, shuns a privileged life in Lagos to live with her lover, Odenigbo, in the university town of Nsukka. Finally, there’s Richard, a British expatriate who passionately adopts Biafra as his own country and falls in love with Olanna’s serene and enigmatic twin sister, Kainene.

These characters’ lives are entwined with the historic events leading up to the war – the end of English colonialism in Nigeria, the rise of a military government, the massacre of thousands of Igbos and finally, the secession of Biafra and the war that ensued. These characters help lend a firsthand perspective to a little-known period in history.

With a powerful gift for storytelling, Adichie draws the reader into a world of intense love, hate, fear, hope, doubt and loyalty. Through her characters, the reader sees the individual and collective effect war has on human beings. Adichie conveys how relationships fall apart and grow stronger while she describes how boys are conscripted into the army and children starve to death. In her skillful narrative tapestry, Adichie paints the rise and fall of a nation.

The nervous apprehension of looming war stews in Adichie’s gripping portrayals, and the accompanying panic, terror, tension and profound loss find a complementary role. As Adichie’s characters come alive, the reader begins to care about their personal struggles and well-being and desperately wants them to be OK.

Half of a Yellow Sun is an epic story set in wartime, but it is not just a war novel. It’s a story of relationships between lovers, friends and family, of love and forgiveness. It is a novel wrought with humanity. It’s at once heartbreaking and heartwarming, inspiring and poignant.

Half of a Yellow Sun is a novel of the human spirit. With this novel, Adichie evokes wisdom beyond her 29 years.