Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie
Tragically Compelling
With effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafras
impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern
Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade
alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old
houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of
revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who
has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm;
and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin
sister Kainene. Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of
the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war.
Personal Review: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie

Like the events of Rwanda and Uganda, the true depth of the tragedies of
the Nigeria's civil war largely escaped the Western world's consciousness
and are only brought to light in remarkable books like Adichie's "Half of a
Yellow Sun." Biafra's ill-fated struggle to establish an independent nation
is beautifully and elegantly told through the eyes and voices of twin sisters
of wealth Olanna and Kainene, and a highly intuitive 13-year old houseboy
Ugwu. Olanna is mistress to a highly ideological university professor
Odenigbo who fervently supports Biafran independence. Kainene is
married to a British expatriate Richard who is enamored with the land and
its culture. All find their own reasons for remaining in Biafra. And through
them we learn how the people lived, loved, starved and suffered during this
tumultuous period.
I, for one, am old enough to remember the Nigerian civil war and the
million that perished during that struggle. I remember seeing the covers of
magazines showing the starving Biafran children. Yet, the events then
didn't seem as real as reading "Half of a Yellow Sun." Perhaps a befitting
epilogue to this story is Richard's manuscript which was entitled "The
World Was Silent When We Died."
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