"Half of a yellow sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Review

The newly acquired independence of Nigeria from the Commonwealth involves new problems. The population is split over how the country should be governed. Many intellectuals still see a strong bond to the former colonial ruler Great Britain, and between the different tribes is discord as well, because when you speak of Nigerians you don’t speak of a homogenous people but a loose affiliation of different peoples whose only common ground is that between the borders of their nation.

Now that the Nigerians are supposed to govern themselves, each of those tribes is afraid of being overlooked, and Nigeria turns into a powder keg. History is made quickly, a military putsch is pulled through mainly by Igbo, one of the three biggest tribes in Nigeria. That results in the persecution of the Igbo who get murdered in masses by people of the other tribes. 1967 at last, in the South-East of the country, the republic Biafra is declared, a nation supposed to protect the Igbo and make them independent from Nigeria. What follows is a bloody war between both countries and a blockade that coins the image of the biafran malnourished child with a bloated belly forever before Biafra is reincorporated after the capitulation in 1970.

In “Half of a yellow sun”, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie bluntly and impressively tells the story of three people during the rise and fall of Biafra. The link between those people is the university docent Odenigbo who fights for Biafra passionately. We witness the story from the point of view of his wife Olanna who falls from the life of a privileged daughter of a rich family into a life in poverty in a refugee camp during the war, the point of view of the houseboy Ugwu who is intellectually fostered but also influenced by his master and yet always keeps a little jungle in his heart, and from the point of view of the British journalist Richard who, after living as a stranger in Nigeria, finally feels home in Biafra – and still isn’t, due to his skin colour and origin and the privileges coming with that.

With “Half of a yellow sun”, Adichie, who is an Igbo herself, makes a part of history visible that ususally is overlooked by the Eurocentric world view and the habit to let the winners write history and yet manages to not force a onesided view upon the reader by being fully aware of both the flaws of Biafra as well as the injustices that were committed by Nigeria and the rest of the world. Additionally, with the social entanglements between Olanna, Odenigbo and Richard and their families, she makes up a thrilling and captivating family story.

 “Half of a yellow sun” makes this part of history understandable especially to those who never heard the word Biafra. Helping with that is a glossary at the end of the book.