A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as “the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe,” Half of a Yellow Sun re-creates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria in the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed.
With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor’s beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops …
A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as “the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe,” Half of a Yellow Sun re-creates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria in the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed.
With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor’s beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.
Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race—and the ways in which love can complicate them all. Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise and the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place, bringing us one of the most powerful, dramatic, and intensely emotional pictures of modern Africa that we have ever had.
Romaani Biafran valtion synnystä, sen lyhyestä olemassaolosta, sodasta ja nälänhädästä. Keskiössä ovat Nigerian ehdottomaan eliittiin kuuluvan perheen kaksostyttäret, jotka ovat tottuneet rikkaaseen elämään mutta jotka sodan myötä joutuvat kärsimään siinä missä muutkin ja menettävät myös omaisuutensa. Sisällöllisesti kiinnostava kurkistus 1960-luvun juuri itsenäistyneeseen Nigeriaan ja sen sisäisiin ristiriitoihin, mutta kerronta oli vähemmän vetävää ja lukemista sai tehdä ihan tosissaan.
If I hadn't already read The Dollmaker in March then Half Of A Yellow Sun would certainly have been my Book Of The Month. Adichie's exploration of events leading up to and during the late 1960s civil war in Nigeria is a powerful indictment of irresponsible colonialism and also an emotionally moving historical novel. We see Nigeria and, for its brief existence, Biafra, through several eyes which enables Adichie to give a rounded portrayal of the disastrous attempt at independence. Already knowing how this battle will turn out means the whole of Half Of A Yellow Sun is tinged with poignancy, but I still found myself caught up in the excitement and self-belief of the Igbo people as they started to fight back against persecution.
I loved that our leading characters are such complicated people and their interconnected relationships allows us to see their actions from different perspectives. Twins are …
If I hadn't already read The Dollmaker in March then Half Of A Yellow Sun would certainly have been my Book Of The Month. Adichie's exploration of events leading up to and during the late 1960s civil war in Nigeria is a powerful indictment of irresponsible colonialism and also an emotionally moving historical novel. We see Nigeria and, for its brief existence, Biafra, through several eyes which enables Adichie to give a rounded portrayal of the disastrous attempt at independence. Already knowing how this battle will turn out means the whole of Half Of A Yellow Sun is tinged with poignancy, but I still found myself caught up in the excitement and self-belief of the Igbo people as they started to fight back against persecution.
I loved that our leading characters are such complicated people and their interconnected relationships allows us to see their actions from different perspectives. Twins are an important motif to Adichie and here the two sisters Olanna and Kainene have very different views on the best way to navigate their lives and I liked the brittle connection between them. Innocent Ugwe perhaps has the most difficult journey from village ignorance to political awareness. As readers, we learn alongside him, seeing as he does the many facets of Nigerian society that, repressed under British rule, now independence has come to the country are all asserting themselves. As an English woman I found myself again angry at my country for its behaviour.
Graphic descriptions of poverty, starvation and violence are frequently difficult to read and Half Of A Yellow Sun is not a novel for the faint-hearted. It shows the worst of humanity, but also the best. We understand how a people can be led to absolute disaster by carefully manipulated nationalist propaganda, how weak some individuals will be at such a time, how greedy and power-hungry, and also how strong and selfless. I believe this story of fifty years ago carries a powerful lesson for right now. Splintering along cultural or religious lines and allowing ourselves to be ruled by fear and hate will only result in Biafra being repeated again and again and again all over the world.
In the beginning, I very much enjoyed reading about the characters and their relationships. Afterwards I was amazed at the things I had forgotten or never knew about Nigerian history.
Okay, don't shoot me. I see a lot of people like this book and I totally get why! There's a lot to like here! The writing style is great, the depictions are vivid, and the author really knows how to paint a scene. I really felt like I got into the heads of the characters, their motives, and their feelings. The audiobook narrator was also really, really good.
But I just didn't find a lot here that I found interesting. The setting was unique, the culture fascinating, but I thought the start was really slow, and honestly I found the characters kind of boring. Ugwu was especially unlikeable to me. I don't know, I see why a lot of people like this book, but it just wasn't for me.
This is one of those books that has been on my ‘to read’ stack for a long time. Immediately after finishing it, every other book Adichie has written has been added to my stack.
This is an extraordinary book told from the perspective of three different characters. These are richly imagined characters that come to life from the very first sentence.
The multiple interwoven stories are deftly handled. While the storylines are complex, the form a coherent hold. Somehow Adichie managed this while avoiding a neat and tidy ending. This book shows that avoiding this type can have more of an impact than a “satisfying” resolution.
But more than anything, this book shows the reality of war: the impact it has on the lives of ordinary people, the shame it induces and the acts of everyday heroism it takes to survive. It also shows how easily our comfortable lives can …
This is one of those books that has been on my ‘to read’ stack for a long time. Immediately after finishing it, every other book Adichie has written has been added to my stack.
This is an extraordinary book told from the perspective of three different characters. These are richly imagined characters that come to life from the very first sentence.
The multiple interwoven stories are deftly handled. While the storylines are complex, the form a coherent hold. Somehow Adichie managed this while avoiding a neat and tidy ending. This book shows that avoiding this type can have more of an impact than a “satisfying” resolution.
But more than anything, this book shows the reality of war: the impact it has on the lives of ordinary people, the shame it induces and the acts of everyday heroism it takes to survive. It also shows how easily our comfortable lives can be taken away and replaced with a life where finding the next meal is a challenge.
This book is the reason I read. This is the type of book that I hope to find but rarely do; the kind of book that changes the way you see the world and changes you.
If I could give it 10 stars, I would. This is one of the best, most engaging books I've read recently. It made me smile, it shocked me, it made me sad, it made me laugh.
I liked how the characters are developed and presented through a narrator's point of view, as we get to read the same story as seen through different eyes. I liked how human stories are set against the backdrop of tragedy and war. I liked Chimamanda's sensibility, maturity and softness.
If you're struggling to get through the first 1/4 of this book, let me encourage you: It's actually about the Nigerian civil war and the secession of Biafra, and things start happening! Just keep going! I almost gave up before I got to the point where the revolution began, because almost 150 pages at the beginning are spent setting up the characters and describing Nigerian life in the early 1960s, and it's quite dull. There's very little plot movement. But I was encouraged to keep going because a friend was further along in the same book and really enjoying it, and I'm glad I did.
The title of Richard's book, "The World Was Silent When We Died," is apropos. As an American born after the events in the book, I knew nothing about this period of Nigerian history, and it serves as a reminder of the many tragedies playing out …
If you're struggling to get through the first 1/4 of this book, let me encourage you: It's actually about the Nigerian civil war and the secession of Biafra, and things start happening! Just keep going! I almost gave up before I got to the point where the revolution began, because almost 150 pages at the beginning are spent setting up the characters and describing Nigerian life in the early 1960s, and it's quite dull. There's very little plot movement. But I was encouraged to keep going because a friend was further along in the same book and really enjoying it, and I'm glad I did.
The title of Richard's book, "The World Was Silent When We Died," is apropos. As an American born after the events in the book, I knew nothing about this period of Nigerian history, and it serves as a reminder of the many tragedies playing out around the world, even today, about which we are unaware or uninterested. In the Afterword, the author includes a list of further reading on Biafra, into which I am now tempted to delve further. (Incidentally, did you know that the humanitarian crisis caused by the Nigerian blockade of Biafra was what spurred the creation of Doctors Without Borders?)
I read "Americanah" (by the same author) last year, and found this book much more compelling. The writing is lyrical and beautiful, and she does a wonderful job of conveying the experience of living through a civil war and of helping non-Nigerians understand the racial and tribal divisions among the populations, and the effect of British colonialism, that led to the conflict. The characters are sympathetic and realistic, and I loved watching them change as national events put them into situations they never anticipated, and throws the concerns of their prior lives into perspective. Be sure and read the brief Afterword, which explains the author's personal connection to the real-world events.
So many war stories become about the horrors of war, or even wallow in them. This story treats the Biafran war the opposite way, focusing only on its characters. Each have their own experiences of those horrors in the context of their lives and backgrounds. This way the war is woven into lives that we know, in which it is only one of many forces at work.
This was really difficult to get through. There are some brilliant moments, but mostly it's just boring. Not sure where the great ratings are coming from. I didn't feel like there was a story in the characters, or a strategy in the layout of the chapters. Disappointing. Barely made it through.
I enjoyed this book very much both as literature and as historical fiction. It prompted me to finally read Things Fall Apart and the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.
