Book Review: A Tale of Biafra
A Review of Half of a Yellow Sun
A Novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Reviewed by:
Obi. O. Akwani
Editor, Minorities Global Village
Posted: January 09, 2009
Over the Christmas holidays, I managed to read Ngozi Adichie's second novel,
Half of a Yellow Sun. I said
'managed' but that is not to suggest a difficult read. Some other works may have been impossible to plow
through in the same length of time given the many distractions of the festive holiday season. Adichie's novel,
however, was a pleasant read. She writes elegantly with subtle nuances and a clear logic. I came to depend on
the novel for my after-dinner relaxation when the visitors have come and gone and I had one or two hours on my
own before bed.
Half of a Yellow Sun is a tale of Biafra -- that brief republic, born out of despair in 1967 and carved out of
Eastern Nigeria following a Rwanda-like death dealing that resulted from the immediate post-independence
politics of that country. It is the story of Biafra seen through the eyes of a family of university teachers.
The novel follows Odenigbo and Olanna, husband and wife university lecturers, their little daughter and
faithful man-Friday Ugwu, from their pre-war years of idyllic intellectual life in Nsukka, into their travails
in the shrinking Biafran enclave, till the anti-climax ending of the war and their return to the university to
pick up the threads of their broken lives.
For many Nigerians from the eastern part of the country -- those who were there as participants and witnesses
in that war -- Half of a Yellow Sun is an intimately familiar story. That familiarity is one of the several
remarkable things about Adichie's novel. This young novelist has successfully captured the mood and spirit of
that time -- the emotions and attitudes; fears and discriminations -- which combined to propel the country
into war and to sustain the spirit of the Biafrans and exacerbate the confusions of the young breakaway nation
until their leader, Odumegwu Ojukwu's announcement of his exit from what remained of the besieged country "in
search of peace."
Another remarkable quality of this novel is the author’s sober objectivity. Based on a pre-release snippet
that was supposed to be from the novel which I had read some years ago on the Internet, I had expected the
full novel to be another self-righteous Igbo nostalgia about Biafra. But it turned out to be otherwise. That
self-righteous emotionalism that characterized much of the immediate post-war literature, and which continues
to dominate the discourse of the events of that era (1966 to 1970) on both sides of the Nigeria-Biafra War
divide is mercifully absent in Adichie's novel.
Given mostly from the perspective of its Biafran characters, the novel remains soberly on track and refuses to
fall into the trap of emotional finger-pointing. What we read is the individual protagonists in their daily
striving for self-improvement, even as the sounds and horrors of war envelop and victimize them and they
struggle for survival.
Adichie's ability to remain thus focused may be attributed to her position as a writer. The Biafra war ended
in January 1970, seven years before Adichie, herself, was born. That separation in time may perhaps account
for her objectivity, her ability to rise above the emotionalism that entraps so many Nigerians, especially
those who were there when these things were happening, in the discussion of such matters.
To write a book about historical events well enough removed from your own immediate personal experiences
requires not only a good novelist's imagination; it also calls for patient and meticulous research. Adichie
acquitted herself very well in that department. Her novel rings clearly true even for those who lived through
the Biafran experience. She has demonstrated the ability to evoke the feeling of the moment -- the fear, the
uncertainty and the mutual suspicions of saboteurs everywhere; the enervating sense of despair during the air
raids; and the fatalistic acceptance of things as they are.
For that gift of evocation and description, Adichie's indebtedness runs wide. She acknowledges more than 30
other authors whose books formed the backbone of her research for this novel. But her deepest indebtedness is
to her parents and extended family members through whom she acquired a rich throve of oral history. Of her
parents, Professor James and Mrs. Grace Adichie, she writes that they "have always wanted [her] to know." She
thanks them for "their stories and so much more."
Half of a Yellow Sun is proof that Adichie is one of a new generation of true African writers -- those that
write us into remembrance and self-knowledge rather than forgetfulness.
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