Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsShe doesn’t just write about a couple of love stories during war
Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2016
I came into Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun not knowing much about the Biafran conflict. I came out feeling as if I’d just lived through the experience. “Moving” is the most appropriate term for this novel. Adichie doesn’t just write about the failure of a new state trying to gain independence from Nigeria. She doesn’t just write about a couple of love stories during war, or family relationships that took place during war. What she does so masterfully and deliciously is capture the dreams and hopes and vision of Biafra, paint it so clearly that the reader can taste it, and then take it all away slowly, deliberately, painfully… mimicking what those who lived through the conflict probably felt. Her ability to capture the dramatic life-altering experiences of Biafra is astonishing. When I put down the book, I felt as if I’d just experienced the conflict through my own eyes.
Essentially, the book is about chronicling the tone and feel of the Biafran conflict. She leaves the reader wanting Biafra, needing Biafra, and feeling remorse for the consequences of its failure (not a spoiler – her plot is carved into history). Nigeria in the 1960s was a society entangled in ethnic troubles and then civil war. The genocide inflicted on the Igbo people is horrible and tragic. Through the war they suffered and starved, eventually bringing Biafra to its knees. This part of her story is one of the most powerful, and where Adichie really flexes her literary muscles. How she is able to have starvation permeate her imagined world, effecting each character and the world around them, is fantastic. How Adichie was able to capture the pain and torment in such a realistic way is beyond me. Her depth of research also becomes apparent here, regularly – but not obnoxiously – dropping in facts and names of organizations and people who were there during the conflict.
Adichie’s argument and motive for writing such a work was to chronicle with as much accuracy as possible the tone and feel of that conflict. She leaves the reader wanting Biafra, needing Biafra, and feeling remorse for the consequences of its failure (not a spoiler – her plot is carved into history). I can guarantee you will put down this book and go straight to your computer to research this event.
The length of the work is one of the few complaints I have. In Adichie’s obsessive need to create the world of Biafra as realistically for the reader as possible, her details can slow the pacing. This is an emotional novel, and she builds the emotions over time. Also, don’t be expecting to laugh – you barely will.
Yet, if you are looking for a work that will move you and your worldview, this is the one. I highly recommend.
