Half of a Yellow Sun
Mon, May 28, 2007 at 09:35PM 
Half of a Yellow Sun.
Written by: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Read by: Adjoa Andoh
Published by: Harper Collins Audio
Price: £16.99
Honestly speaking, the only thing I remember about the Biafran war is my mum and dad telling me to eat all my dinner because there were starving people in Africa.
This novel brings mum’s reprimands and what I was seeing on tv into perspective. Half of a Yellow Sun is a harrowing novel about the horror of the Biafran three year war of independence from Nigeria in 1967-70. Learn more about it here and here.
Half of a Yellow Sun, the emblem on the new Biafran flag, takes us into the heart of the trauma of war and its profound effect on the Biafran people; it claimed more than two million lives.
It's read beautifully by Adjoa Andoh who's fast becoming a favourite of mine. (She also narrated Zadie Smith's On Beauty and Alexander McCall Smith's The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.) She pronounces African character and names in such a way that they’re easily familiarised.
The novel centres on twin sisters Olanna and Kainene, members of the Igbo community. Not only do they not look alike, they are both very different characters. The beautiful Olanna is the mistress of Odenigbo, an intellectual who teaches at a university. She leaves her privileged life to live with Odenigbo, breaking her engagement to a Hausa Prince.
In contrast, Kainene runs her father’s shipping company and falls for Richard Churchill, a writer. Kainene holds her emotions close, and seems to tolerate Richard, who’s drawn out as a bumbling Hugh Grant’eque character with a passion for the Igbo people. He becomes fluent in the language, earning a begrudged respect. They would rather be speaking English, the language of the affluent and intellectual.
Although sounding cliché, Adichie’s novel of loyalty in the face of adversity is anything but. The house servant, Ugwu touched me most with this trait. He joins the household after being plucked from his small village: he has a gift for cooking. From the outset, he knows he is lucky to have Odenigbo as a ‘Master’. He is affectionately called ‘My good man’ and enrolled in his Master’s university staff school, securing an education. The finale of Ugwu’s growth, I think, is when he teaches in the devastated schools with Olanna, and later starts writing a book about the war himself on scraps of newspaper.
Ugwu’s stint as a soldier gave me yet another angle from which to view the war. He’s honourable, and following his peers into the chaos is something that I believe will haunt him forever.
Adichie paints her characters with a craftsmanship that made them leap out of the player and into my car. Odenigbo’s mother is as vibrantly depicted as a refugee on a train, carrying her daughter’s head in a bowl. Perversely, it is Odenigbo’s mother that upsets the balance of his and Olanna’s relationship, not the war.
Each character brings their own perspective of the war that is upon them. Each account is heartbreaking.
I didn’t want to leave my car while this was on; definitely one to recommend to friends.
Reader Comments (2)