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Half of a Yellow Sun | 
 enlarge | Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $8.93
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Avg. Customer Rating:  77 reviews
Sales Rank: 4274
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 560
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 1400095204
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.92
EAN: 9781400095209
ASIN: 1400095204
Publication Date: September 4, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 4 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Few left in stock - order soon. Code: R20090106234421H
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Product Description
With effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene. Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 72 more reviews...
 A New Classic January 6, 2009
Absolutely brilliant and heart-breaking. I have sent this copy to a friend in Nigeria, who has not been able to get her hands on a copy of this book. All Nigerians, and all people interested in the history and fate of Nigeria, should read this book.
Wonderful, engrossing story January 5, 2009
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is not about the Biafra war. It's a family drama set before and during the Biafra war. It is to Ms. Adichie's great credit that the reader does not have to know anything about the setting or the events of the war; her story will tell us all we need to know without trying to teach us outright.
There are five main characters. Central to the story are two sisters, twins, Olanna and Kainene, daughters of privilege with very wealthy parents and the best educations money can buy. Olanna gives up her wealth to become the mistress of Odenigbo, a passionate, young professor who holds regular salons where the issues of the day and plans for the future of post-colonial Nigeria are discussed. Kainene takes an Englishman, Richard, as her lover. Richard, who is white, can move among the inner circle of the Europeans who continue to live in Nigeria after Independence. He is also fluent enough in African languages and customs to achieve a quasi-insider status among Kainene's circle. The fifth character is Ugwu, Odenigbo's houseboy, who provides a window into village life and the lives of the lower classes in 1960's Nigeria.
The family drama that plays out among these five characters would be sufficient to fill a lesser novel. But this story is set in 1960's Nigeria, and the characters are all Igbo, even Richard initially stayed in Africa to study Igbo artifacts. In the 1960's, violence broke out between the largely Christian Igbo in Southern Nigeria and the Muslim Huasa in the north. The Igbo were brutally massacred in several northern locations and forced to flee the the southern part of the country. In response, they declared independence, and set up the country of Biafra. Nigeria, went to war to reunite the country and bring the land of Biafra, and the oil underneath it, back into the fold. Nigeria was supported by most of the world including England and Russia. Biafra was officially recognized by only a handful of African nations and never relieved much more than humanitarian support, and not very much of that. In spite of this, the tiny nation managed to survive for three years before finally surrendering to Nigeria.
I am not expert enough to comment on Ms. Adichie's presentation of Biafra's history, but as far as the novel goes, I don't think it matters if she got all of the details correct. The broader picture is accurate, and it's the novelistic details that really matter here--the story of how one family tried to survive famine, war and each other while the rest of the world largely turned its back and looked away.
Half of a Yellow Sun is a big novel, in the 19th century sense of the word. Ms. Adichie takes her time introducing the cast of characters to us. Each of the initial chapters is devoted to one or two characters, giving us a chance to really get to know one before we meet the next. Ms. Adichie takes her time introducing the war, as well. The book is divided into four sections that go back and forth between the early sixties, years before the war began, and the late sixties when the war took place. This works to help make an unbearable subject bearable. We need to know the what the characters and their lives were like before the war began to fully appreciate what happened and how the war changed them. The Biafran war itself is rightly remembered, when it is remembered, as one of the great horrors of the 20th century. Telling that story for 200 plus pages would make for very difficult reading. (Ms. Adichie would surely lose most of the members of my book club in the process.) The third part of the book flashes back from wartime to the more peaceful early sixties. But make no mistake, this is not a book that shys away from its subject matter. Each of the two sisters, Olanna and Kainene witness a very specific event that haunts them throughout the rest of the novel. Ms. Adichie is able to drive home all the terrible crimes of the Biafra war through these two events and through the changes Ugwu undergoes once he is conscripted to fight for Biafra.
I was struck by how much Half of a Yellow Sun reminded me of what I like most about Olivia Manning's Balkan and Levant Trilogies. Manning's six novels are about a British couple who spend World War II in civilian jobs, he is a professor, in Yugosalvia, Greece and Egypt, one step ahead of the fighting. They are set during wartime, but they are really the portrait of a marriage. What's memorable about Ms. Manning's work and about Half of a Yellow Sun is the characters, their lives, their loves, their struggle to survive and to stand for their principles under great duress. Both authors write to pay tribute to the people they depict, but Ms. Adichie also writes to pay tribute to an idea, Biafra, to remind us what happened there, to make sure the world does not forget.
the world was silent December 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the type of sweeping and heartfelt epic novel that tends to be overhyped by critics, but in this case the rave reviews are more than justified. Ms. Adichie has created a beautifully written and far-reaching work of historical fiction that capably explores crucial themes, and covers a historical era and place that will be little known to western readers. Adichie follows her well-drawn characters through the Nigeria of the 1960s, culminating in the doomed struggle for independence in Biafra and its cruel defeat by the European-backed Nigerians. Readers who disdain typical egghead praise for themes of post-colonialism, race, and class (not to mention the usually over-aggrandized "love and war") can ignore their fears because Adichie's exploration of these crucial themes is never heavy-handed. She achieves subtle yet hard-hitting insight into the horrors of war - particularly the divisive propaganda, ethnic strife, and false jingoism - via excellent characters whose spirits are tested by incredible hardship. This passionate and empathetic novel is destined to become a classic that easily transcends stereotypes, and the reader will learn about the complex nature of Nigeria and its peoples as well. [~doomsdayer520~]
 A Biafra Primer and More December 21, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
What do we collectively know about the nation of Biafra? Images of starving children and the vague memory of a benefit concert come to mind. However, this historical novel will fill you in on many aspects of what this country was about - I say "was" because Biafra existed for 3 years only, at the end of the 1960's, when the Igbo people attempted formed their own nation by seceeding from Nigeria. The solid story arc is held together by a 13 yr houseboy, who interacts with a cast of well drawn and sympathetic characters, making it a page turner till the very end
Half of A Yellow Sun November 17, 2008
Once you start reading HALF OF A YELLOW SUN, you'll find it hard to put it aside. What starts out like an innocent love story quickly turns into a serious thriller set in the Nigerian civil war over Biafra, Africa's first and major genocide of the 20th century in a country that supplies 15 % of America's oil, a war that cost millions of civilian lives. The author, Chimamanda Adichie seems too young to have lived through this harrowing experience herself, but her powerful novel truly invokes the realities of history and quickly immerses even those who had no clue. A must read for every person interested in the human condition, in genocide, politics and Africa.
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