Book Review: Half of a Yellow Sun By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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When I picked this piece of African Writing, I did not know what to expect. The only objective I had was to read a different Author, one who comes from a world that was different from the one most of the authors we read belong to. And boy, did it make a difference.

Half of a Yellow Sun is a story of three characters Igwu, Olanna and Richard set in the 1960’s both before as well as during the Nigerian civil war.  As you start getting to know the characters in the book, you begin to believe that like any other fiction, these characters will form the central element of the story and the rest will revolve around them. But as you get deeper and deeper into the plot, you realize eventually that the theme centers on the Nigerian civil war, the rise and fall of Biafra and the torment and inhuman treatment by the Hausa’s (from northern Nigeria) of the Igbo’s (southern Nigeria) leading to the birth of what we today define as starvation. The intent of the characters is but a mean to bring to fore the plight Nigeria suffered at the hands of its own people.

Igwu is a house boy to Professor Odenigbo and later his wife Olanna as well, who does everything a house boy should. For him loyalty means being with his master and mistress through thick and thin, through life and death. Olanna, a Sociology Major is a smart, forward thinking Igbo woman whose parents have rich political connects and is estranged from her twin sister Kainene. Richard is a Igbo loving English writer who finds his true calling in Nigeria than he does in his own homeland. He finds love and companionship with Kainene. The journey of these five characters through the civil war, the way their lives intertwine and the consequences they have forms the crux of this book.

In the early sixties, each character is shown to develop, each personality is revealed. Then the Author moves a few years ahead into 1967 where war breaks out and she paints a picture of how overnight everyone turns homeless and runs for their lives. From here she does a playback to events that happen pre-war which test the relationships between the protagonists and then moves it forward to the peak of the war and finally the end it sees.

The star of this novel is not the depth Chimamanda brings to her characters nor is it the relationships that develop between them. It is the attitude she brings out in them to overcome issues they have and the instinct she portrays for survival during the short time that Biafra comes to life and gets engulfed by one of the worst civil wars of our time. 

I am sure not many of us have much insight into African history, let alone the plight of those who suffered the war. Chimamanda does a fantastic job of giving us that peek into what formed the foundation of Nigeria as we know it to be today. Starvation is too small a word to describe what the people went through. Lack of food and supplies made them eat lizards and worms, things you would not even consider as food in normal times. Lack of hygiene and cleanliness made them victim of diseases that we would never have thought off. Imagine using the same tea bag for days together to have your black tea. Imagine using the same water day after day to clean whatever little grain you might get to eat. Imagine making your own soap out of ash. Imagine observing animals to see what leaves they eat and then eating that yourself… no, how much ever we try, we really cannot imagine it. She narrates the horrors of the massacres, how pregnant women were beaten, raped and killed, how fire was opened on anyone who looked like an Igbo…how humanity came to a standstill. But what shines through all the melancholy is the hope the Biafrans harbor of a brighter future, symbolized by the half yellow sun on their flag.

Half of a Yellow Sun is a heart wrenching lesson in history with a human narrative. This book is an effort by the Author to let the world know what her country went through during those trying times. This is her way of telling the world that the effect of that war has still not died out. It has its effect on every Nigerian even today. This book is a piece of Literature that makes a difference. It makes you feel that a Writer is quite capable of doing justice to history.

Don’t miss this book; we all need to know how our world once used to be….