Friday 11 February 2011

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie


Okay, time for a bit of a history lesson.  I knew nothing about Nigerian history before reading this wonderful novel, but here is what I learned:  Nigeria was ruled by the British until the late 1960s.  During this time of colonial rule the Igbo people were perceived as doing better than the other tribes.  After the British left, there were mass uprisings/ethnic cleansing against the Igbo people, especially by the Hausa tribe.  This led to them breaking away and forming their own state, Biafra.  The flag of Biafra was half of a yellow sun.  The Nigerian forces deliberately used starvation as a tactic against Biafra and eventually it fell.  Both sides recruited child soldiers.

I learned all of this without realising I was learning it by reading Adichie's novel.  It's narrated by three distinct people: Olanna, the daughter of an Igbo chief; Richard, an Englishman who has fallen in love with Nigeria and later Biafra; and Ugwu, a houseboy for an Igbo professor.  All of their lives overlap and they are thrown together as the war descends.

I can't describe just how much I enjoyed reading this book.  It was a real epic and dealt with some harrowing topics - rape, genocide and child soldiers - and the central characters were just so vivid that everything had more impact.  What I thought was really powerful was how Adichie had them becoming less and less concerned with their previous problems as the war overtook them.  Olanna hadn't spoken to her sister in years but when she witnesses war, all of that fades away.  It seemed to me like a realistic portrayal of war, although thankfully I have never experienced it.  The whole book had lots of emotional impact, to the point where certain scenes were hard to read.

The structure of the novel broke up the harrowing parts from the pre-war parts well, and it was all anchored by extracts from a book about the conflict that one of the characters was writing.  Although Adichie is Nigerian, it never felt like she was trying to preach or convert, simply telling a story about what happened to millions of Biafrans during that time.  The writing style was simple, but very powerful.  The pace moved from slow in the sections about the time before the war, to almost frantic as events escalated.

Can't recommend this one enough.

Score: 5 out of 5.

12 comments:

  1. I read this a while ago and absolutely loved it! Like you, I learned loads from it wihout even realising, and I really like that kind of book!

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  2. Great review - I loved this book, too. War is horrific, whether here, there or in a place and time you had never knew about before. Loved the characters in this novel, too!

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  3. Glad you enjoyed the book.I read it a few years ago and your review refreshed my memory.

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  4. I am still trying to get to this. Everyone who read it says its very good.

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  5. Same here! I just LOVED this book. Adichie quickly became one of my favorite authors. Glad you enjoyed it!

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  6. I read this last year and loved it. Like you, I knew nothing about Nigeria so I felt that I'd really learned something new from this book. And it was a wonderful story too!

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  7. Great review! This has been on my wish list for a long, time... I'm hoping my book club will choose to read it.

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  8. Greg, I felt like the book was more shocking because I hadn't known about it. I recently read a non-fiction book called The State of Africa and it just described it as reprisals in a very detached tone, which didn't convey the horror of it at all.

    Helen - Glad you enjoyed it too. I had read a little about Nigeria but nothing that conveyed the scale of the attacks.

    JoAnn - Hope you do get to read it soon, it's well worth it.

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  9. This sounds really great, but harrowing. Probably one to be in the right frame of mind for. Some of the books that have been the most powerful reads and ones I would highly recommend (eg A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry) are ones I'm so glad I read because of what I learned from them, but are not ones I'd probably be able to stomach reading again - just too emotional.

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  10. This sounds like my idea of great historical fiction -- a book that helps me learn about a period in history with which I'm unfamilar, and at the same time is a wholly engrossing story.
    Wonderful review :)

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  11. I've been wanting to read this book for quite some time. Your review makes me want to read it that much more :)

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  12. This is truly a memorable novel; but it's not for the weak-hearted. It's even more impressive and more accomplished than her critically acclaimed first novel, Purple Hibiscus. "Half of a Yellow Sun" is an apt title, perhaps; but the novel is luminous like a full moon.

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