Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Half of a Yellow Sun
    Unavailable
    Half of a Yellow Sun
    Unavailable
    Half of a Yellow Sun
    Audiobook (abridged)7 hours

    Half of a Yellow Sun

    Written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    Narrated by Adjoa Andoh

    4.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    Winner of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2007, this is a heartbreaking, exquisitely written literary masterpiece.

    Now available as a digital download.

    This highly anticipated novel from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is set in Nigeria during the 1960s, at the time of a vicious civil war in which a million people died and thousands were massacred in cold blood.

    The three main characters in the novel are swept up in the violence during these turbulent years. One is a young boy from a poor village who is employed at a university lecturer's house. The other is a young middle-class woman, Olanna, who has to confront the reality of the massacre of her relatives. And the third is a white man, a writer who lives in Nigeria for no clear reason, and who falls in love with Olanna's twin sister, a remote and enigmatic character.

    As these people's lives intersect, they have to question their own responses to the unfolding political events. This extraordinary novel is about Africa in a wider sense: about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race; and about the ways in which love can complicate all of these things.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateApr 16, 2007
    ISBN9780007263004
    Unavailable
    Half of a Yellow Sun
    Author

    Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the author of Purple Hibiscus, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize, Half of a Yellow Sun, which won the Orange Prize for Fiction; and acclaimed story collection The Thing Around Your Neck. Americanah, was published around the world in 2013, received numerous awards and was named one of New York Times Ten Books of the Year. A recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, she divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.

    Related to Half of a Yellow Sun

    Related audiobooks

    Classics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Mbuze

      Oct 29, 2021

      Mbuze
      11 min read

    • Article

      Little Gods

      Jan 8, 2020

      Little Gods
      8 min read

    • Article

      Six Stories

      Sep 8, 2020

      I’m on the train, traveling alone, with two seats to myself. I have to use the restroom. Without thinking about it carefully, I ask a couple across the aisle if they would please watch my things for me for a moment. Then I take a closer look at them

      8 min read

    • Article

      Dark DEEDS

      Jan 13, 2021

      Dark DEEDS
      9 min read

    • Article

      “No Brown Sugar in Anybody’s Milk”

      Jun 5, 2023

      Essie T-e-e-e. Essie T. Where is that girl? Essie T., hurry up and come in here and fasten the back of this dress. Honestly, girl, are you always so slow? A big clumsy-looking girl pushed herself across the room. She walked as if she were afraid that

      10 min read

    • Article

      A Kitchen, A Sunroom, And A Thousand Days

      Aug 5, 2019

      I was young, maybe 8 or 9. My mother was going through a time: The couple she cleaned for and whom we lived with had broken up and left us lingering in their abandoned home. She had cancer, my mother, so her head was where it was, but sometimes she w

      3 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Jan 1, 2019

      Lydia Rosenburg, age 10 Bellingham, WA The boy curled against the rundown brick wall, too weak to even sit up. The pain behind his eyelids had dulled to a throb, but now his world was nothing but darkness. How long ago had it happened? Day and night,

      7 min read

    • Article

      Counter Waves

      Oct 23, 2020

      Counter Waves
      8 min read

    • Article

      Carrot Legs

      Sep 12, 2019

      Carrot Legs
      20 min read

    • Article

      Bhanu Kapil

      Mar 15, 2019

      Everything is red. The trees look like they’re bending over. The lorry is approaching the village. Nurpur. Don’t tell anyone it was Nurpur. Just say it was any old village. A motorbike was coming from the opposite direction. The driver of the motorbi

      5 min read

    • Article

      Choosing the Flowers

      Oct 10, 2022

      Choosing the Flowers
      10 min read

    • Article

      Nuclear

      Oct 7, 2021

      Nuclear
      7 min read

    • Article

      Winds Of Change

      Dec 10, 2019

      “Till the end of the pitted and dusty lane, she was a dry, brown leaf swiftly floating down a clear stream. Part of it was easy, the part about being brown. ‘Brown as mud and common as mud,’ Aaji would scream every morning waking her up. The rest of

      9 min read

    • Article

      Life Beyond Zoom

      Dec 3, 2020

      Life Beyond Zoom
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Education of Mrs. R.

      Sep 6, 2022

      An adolescent shriek woke her. Cockerels, she thought, cockerels, with a wry twist to the word. She lay in the dark listening. There was no use in covering her head; the screaming still came through. The soloist was suddenly submerged in the chorus.

      13 min read

    • Article

      For The LOVE Of BOOKS

      Sep 1, 2019

      Houshang Moradi Kermani is one of Iran’s most famous writers. This story is from The Tales of Majid, a collection of stories about a boy named Majid who is raised by his grandmother, Bibi, in the rural Iran of sixty years ago. MASH ASSADOLLAH WAS th

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Nodding Tiger

      Sep 6, 2023

      The Nodding Tiger
      4 min read

    • Article

      Why My Nana Buried Her Sofa

      Feb 6, 2019

      I had my story ready for when Mommy picked me up tomorrow from my Nana’s house: Two hours of Maths revision, an afternoon nap, then two hours studying history. But Nana hadn’t got the memo. Or she had but didn’t care. We were standing in the sunshine

      7 min read

    • Article

      THE BOY WHO KEPT Bees

      Oct 6, 2021

      All you could hear was rain, rain, rain. Rain drumming on the slate roof, streaming down the kitchen window, saturating the meadows and the dark woods beyond. Jess waited until her dad had turned away to check his phone, then dropped her half-eaten s

      8 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Jan 1, 2022

      It was an unusual birthday. Colorful banners blanketed the backyard. Kids chased each other through the grass. Adults talked. It all went downhill from there. My little sister was turning five. On her birthday cake, painted in frosting, was a fat, pi

      7 min read

    • Article

      An Important Person

      Feb 3, 2021

      I’m stirring noodles in a pot when Billy gets home. He comes round the back and knocks over Dad’s beer bottles. They are lined up outside. Billy shouts loudly and throws the door open. ‘Is he here?’ he says. ‘No,’ I say. ‘He’s just left.’ Billy nods

      7 min read

    • Article

      Alien Mark

      Sep 1, 2017

      Alien Mark
      9 min read

    • Article

      TOUCH Wood

      Apr 14, 2020

      TOUCH Wood
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Half of a Yellow Sun

    4.5/5

    209 ratings138 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      "Half of a Yellow Sun" is a deeply moving novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It delves into the heart-wrenching events of the Biafran War through the eyes of five central characters. The book highlights the profound personal and communal losses caused by the conflict, revealing the intricate relationships torn apart by the war. Surprisingly, there's no mention of reconciliation or apologies after the devastating events, amplifying the sorrow of the narrative. The story serves as a stark reminder of the dangers of tribalism and the importance of recognizing our shared humanity. Adichie emphasizes the unity of Africans and the need for acceptance and understanding beyond tribal lines. Through themes of loss, hope, love, and despair, the novel urges readers to look beyond divisions and celebrate our common humanity.
    • 4/5
      This story is set around 1967 to 1970 during Nigeria's Biafran war. It is narrated by Ugwu, who works in the household of Odenigbo. Odenigbo's partner is Olanna, and she has a twin sister Kainene. The novel centers around the families of all these people as well as the war itself. The novel appeared to be well-written although the editor needed to do additional work in some of the non-spoken sections to make those conform to grammatical rules and to get rid of passive tenses. As I read the story, I wondered how the war affected some friends I met in graduate school who lived in Nigeria during that time. Sadly I lost touch with them so I may never know the answer.
    • 5/5
      Excellent book; must read more by this author! Learned all about the Nigeria conflict re Biafra, that I knew nothing about and it was very interesting.
    • 4/5
      “The real tragedy of our postcolonial world is not that the majority of people had no say in whether or not they wanted this new world; rather, it is that the majority have not been given the tools to negotiate this new world.” This is Adichie's second book and the title takes its from the emblem for Biafra, the breakaway state in eastern Nigeria whose name became synonymous with war by starvation and eventually only existed for three years. The novel spans all of the 1960s from the early days of independence to the end of the Nigeria-Biafra war in 1970 and the main characters are initially developed in the period post-independence peace and for some prosperity.The novel centres around twin sisters, members of the Igbo tribe, who are very different in both looks and temperament who choose two very different men as lovers. Olanna rebels against her wealthy family and chooses Odenigbo, or "the Master", a radical maths lecturer at the University of Nsukka who lives with his houseboy Ugwu. Ugwu is uneducated but a quick learner so Odenigbo enrols him at the university staff school. Ugwu also becomes a dab hand in the kitchen cooking pepper soup, spicy jollof rice and chicken boiled in herbs when his Master entertains his intellectual friends. This is a time of plenty.In contrast Kainene decides to stay in the family business and works for her father, a wealthy merchant, chooses Richard a shy Englishman as a lover. Richard has come to Africa in the hope of writing a book and lives his servant Harrison. Harrison is a bit of a comic character who loves to cook traditional English fare like roast beef and crumble for his master and scorns others who do not. Yet he is also able to turn his hand roasting such delicacies as lizards and bush rats when the famine strikes. Ethnic differences in peace time are dramatised by the minor characters who include Odenigbo's Yoruba colleague, Miss Adebayo, and Olanna's ex-boyfriend Mohammed, a Hausa prince. These differences assume lethal consequences when a military coup occurs in 1966, leading to violent attacks against the Igbo tribe, the succession of Biafra and war. The relationship between the two sisters has long been fractious when Olanna sleeps with her sister's lover Richard the break becomes a chasm. But when the two sisters and their lovers become caught up in the violence that ensues they are forced into a reconciliation.However, this is not really a novel about war although there are some pretty graphic depictions of the indiscriminate violence that war brings, as well as the portrayal of the starvation of the Biafran people due to food blockades by the Nigerians. Rather the focus is on the characters resilience and fragmenting relationships. Olanna in particular endures the worst effects of the Nigerian actions as along with Odenigbo, Ugwu and her adoptive daughter she slips into squalor, food-aid queues and air raids. When Ugwu is forcibly conscripted he is compelled to take part in some of the atrocities himself whose legacy becomes a lasting shame. Eventually there is forgiveness between the twin sisters subtly echoes that of the warring political groups. A history of colonisation is also alluded to.There are other quiet revolutions in the novel. Odenigbo, the "revolutionary freedom fighter" with endless certainty and self-belief, succumbs to drink and despair, while the seemingly compliant Olanna draws on profound strengths. The master-servant relationship is upended, as the "houseboy" returns with fondness and irony the Master's way of addressing him as "my good man".Adichie was not born until after the conflict and is therefore revisiting the history of her parents so that it endures. The novel's structure, moving in chunks between the late and early 60s, felt a little clunky at times but the clear prose with its harrowing depictions of the suffering that the civilian population had to face and the sometimes unpalatable choices that they had to make more than made up for it. Although this is told from the Biafran side of the conflict no doubt atrocities were perpetrated by both sides. This was perhaps the best post-colonial novel that I've read but a very worthy effort all the same.
    • 5/5
      really helped me to understand the Biafran conflict which I vaguely remembered, but only from a child's point of view.
    • 5/5
      “Red was the blood of the siblings massacred in the North, black was for mourning them, green was for the prosperity Biafra would have, and, finally, the half of a yellow sun stood for the glorious future.” The colours of the Biafran flagHalf of the Yellow Sun is set in Nigeria and tells of the events before and during the Biafran War. Although, these events provide the essential context to the novel, they do not take away the themes of the central story. I guess, like a lot of people I had little knowledge of the Biafran War except for the images of haunted and starving children, used often by the Media to raise awareness of world hunger. This is one of those books which suck you in from the moment you open the first page and start reading. At least that is what it was like for me. I thought that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie managed to create a daunting, complex and deeply moving novel. In a great story telling fashion she weaves the lives of five characters during this tumultuous and horrid time together and shows us through their eyes and their surroundings the complex social, political and religious problems of that time. She tells the story from alternating viewpoints by three of the main characters – Ukwu, Olanna and Richard but the story also jumps backward and forth between the early 60’s and late 60’s This structure of the story needed some time getting used to, as I initially thought that it interrupted the flow of the story and somewhat left me during the second part with the thinking that I had missed something, but this was all rectified in the third part. First we have the beautiful, compassionate and sensitive Olanna with a degree in sociology, daughter of a wealthy high society Igbo family, a life Olanna resents, she leaves her rich environment to live with the intellectual, eccentric and revolutionary Mathematician Odenigbo in Nsukka the Nigerian University town. Not to forget Ukwu who is 13 years old when he comes from a rural impoverished village to work as a houseboy for Odenigbo. It becomes very fast apparent that Ukwo has got a quick mind, so Odenigbo his master educates him in etiquette and sends him to school, as he learns and grows more confident – in his roles as houseboy and student - Ukwu becomes a valued member of the family. In response Ukwu becomes fiercely loyal to Odenigbo and Olanna and tries to step into his masters footsteps. At their home in Nsukka they have frequent gatherings with their friends and alcohol and food mingle with lively discussions about politics and poetry. Then we have got Richard a shy, troubled British idealist who comes to Nigeria in search of traditional Igbo art and to find his identity, in Lagos he meets the enigmatic, pragmatic, cynical and rational Kainene, Olanna’s unlikely twin sister. Olanna is beautiful but where Kainene lacks her good looks in contrast she is efficient and ruthless. She is the “son” of her father who oversees all their business affairs. However, after falling in love with Kainene, Richard finds himself taking up the cause for Biafra and becomes a war correspondent to help the people. He also tries – with little success – to carry on writing a book about the Igbo. In the end he feels “It is not my war to write about”. These are the people we follow through their initial innocent and optimistic times of friendship, love and betrayals, then through the war, with their grief, losses, broken dreams and fight for survival. Their relationships to each other are complicated and complex at times and each single one of them has to fight their own demons. During the war they all surprise you, but I especially liked Kainene – ruthless and cynical – Kainene. She proves to be the leader and survivor, using her shrewd mind to assure the survival of her friends and family, channels all her energy into the people of Biafra by supporting refugee camps, hospitals and organizing farming project. I just felt that Kainene provided the moral anchor in this story. The other bit which intrigued me was that we had a book within the book . This book was called “The World was silent when we Died” . We glimpsed excerpts of the different chapters and for a long time we are left puzzling about the author and then…….. We just know. Definitely another one of my favorite books this year.
    • 3/5
      I must have missed something in this book, based on the universal praise it has received. It took me a long while to get into it. I appreciated Adichie's prose, her detailed characters, and her attention to history, but something along the way failed to grab me. The worst part is that I can't quite nail down what dissatisfied me, because usually I can. I think that the conflict disturbed me, as did the fact that such atrocities were happening and no one did anything substantial to help the Biafrans. It was hopeless and depressing. That doesn't negate the power of the story, but it does make me step back from the novel and question. I suppose that is actually the mark of a great book, but at the same time I just can't say that I liked it.
    • 4/5
      As probably any other European, I rarely read books by African authors, so I am glad to have borrowed this book from a friend. I was glad to see that indeed I recognize so much, that the culture was comprehensible to me. I was happy that the story was independent of the setting of the Nigerian war, although so much, well, yes, everything, was so badly influenced by it. It is like it was trying to say that life goes on even at the most terrible times, which I think is, indeed, true. Like the author, the main characters belong to an elite group with privileges different to the rest of the population, and therefore easily succeed to represent something a European reader can relate to. Through them, the more foreign elements manage to reach us, filtered by the author's own "removed" view. Nevertheless I have read the book with interest and it has made me want to try to read more fiction written about and from the African continent.
    • 4/5
      A beautifully written, heart wrenching story of the Nigerian civil war. I clearly remember the terrible pictures of starving children in Biafra when I was a child in the 60's. This story brings the tragedy into the realm of ordinary people, with which any of us can identify, and to characters that we come to like as we watch hate feed on itself and turn ordinary people into extraodinary human beings, and some into the monster they never knew was within. As always the real reasons for the war are lurking in the background, wearing faces of humanitarianism and concern for the down trodden, and as in Rwanda, allow the tragedy to unfold without lifting a finger to assist, and ultimately leaving the mess for the people of the country to try to sort out. A must-read from a lovely young writer.
    • 5/5
      from the 8/11 abxc meetup; historical fiction about the Nigerian-Biafra war, from the side of the losers. The book follows 5 protagonists: twins Olanna & Kainene, Olanna's black revolutionary lover Odenigbo, Kainene's white British lover, Richard, and Odenigbo's houseboy Ugwa. Set in the early 1960's leading up to the conflict, and the late 1960's during the conflict, the story has triumphs, strengths and despair. Ugwa is conscripted as a soldier and is forced with peer pressure, to do unthinkable things. Olanna and Odenigbo wind up in a refugee camp. And Kainene winds up trying to run a refugee camp and trading with the black market to keep people from starving, only to be unexplainably lost at the end of the war. And Richard is a white man in a black country, who doesn't really fit. Odenigbo's return to the university after the war stirs some thoughts. What should the position of a revolutionary who was on the losing side be after the war?
    • 4/5
      Depressing and captivating all at once. The ending left me feeling a little lost, but perhaps that was appropriate.
    • 5/5
      There are two important rules of novel writing. The first is that the greatness and subtlty of a novel hendges upon how information is withheld and not how it is revealed. Second, that each story has one perfect form. If a writer fails to find that perfect form, the story will not tell. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and defied time and mastered form in her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun. A historical account of the Biafran nation embedded with personal tales of love, betrayal and pride, Adichie's novel is masterfully composed. Each sentence sings, while each charecter has his/her own rhythm. Each characters identity is deeply developed and identifiable. If Adichie never noted which character was speaking, the reader would know because each person has his/her own cadence and style that dances and matures through out the text. There is the essence of love which survives in spite of war. This love freely, and sensuously carries us through the text. Each scene is whole, and satisfyingly complete. Nothing is lost. Every opened chapter meets it's close. Adichie's main characters in both Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus tend to be well educated, well financed. Instinctually, one would wonder how representative the novels are of the nation as a whole. As a reviewer, I must retract that instinct. Why must all writers of color write 'representative' works? Adichie has spoke of feeling personally compelled to ward of negative stereo-types and expectations. While both novels stand tall in accomplishing just that, each work stands more importantly as a beautifully complete, testiment of literature in its highest art. Some novels must be read immediately twice in a row in order to create the illusion that the story, the song never ends. The reader will not want to close Half of a Yellow Sun, and very well turn to these pages time and time again.
    • 5/5
      How to write a review of this book? It is so rich, so varied, so beautifully written, so confronting, that I really do not want to summarise or categorise it. All I can say is: read it. Do. Probably my book of the year.
    • 5/5
      An amazing book, beautiful story, impressive and touching.I haven't read many African novels, and my knowledge of African history is very limited, but I did very much enjoy this book. It tells the story of two sisters, Olanna and Kainene, in the time of the Nigerian-Biafran civil war. The story is told in four parts, two parts before the beginning of the war and two parts during and at the end of the war; the different chapters are told by different characters.By allowing different characters to tell the story Adichie gives us quite a complete view of the war and what it means for different people, and how different people react to the war.Important issues that are touched upon are the history of Nigeria and the influence of the white colonists, and how the country is trying to become part of the modern world. It shows common prejudices that are held within the country, both amongst the white people as wel as amongst the different tribes.As the war breaks lose, the happy and carefree lives of Olanna and Kainene collapse and turn into chaos and hardship. Adichie describes the troubles of war, the displacement of people, the massacres and the hunger in a very vivid and real way, and it really gives you a good idea of what the war meant.Especially when Ugwu, one of the main characters, is forced to join the army, and Olanna and Kainene start working in a refugee center, the war really hits home. On top of that, Adichie leaves us to consider the atrocities that are committed, and how in a war we all become different people, and how everybody might be capable of committing terrible acts...
    • 5/5
      It was a superb book narrated magnificently. She never dropped her accent once!!
    • 5/5
      Adichie gives the Biafran war a very human face by taking her time to create a cast of characters we really care about - especially the twin sisters Olanna and Kainene, and the houseboy Ugwu who comes to lives with Odenigbo, (an intellectual of revolutionary persuasion) and Olanna's love interest. (The group felt that Adichie had probably struggled much harder with the wimpy British journalist, Richard, Kainene's lover, who decides to throw his lot in with the Igbo people .) There are a number of very well realised minor characters including the twins' wealthy parents, and Richard's comic houseboy Harrison, who delights in concocting British dishes.The main events are seen from the vantage point of these Olanna, Richard and Ugwu in turn. I was a bit thrown initially by what I felt were strong similarities (probably imagined?) to Romesh Gunasekera's Reef, but was quickly drawn into the book by all the human drama - love, infidelity, sisterly rivalry, family tensions, black magic. Then, when the war came, for me the physical book in my hands melted and became an open door. I wasn't watching Biafra in black and white news broadcasts - I was there. Yes, there were of course harrowing scenes, but it is the story of day to day survival in the face of starvation that Adichie portrays so well.This is an episode in Nigeria's past that very much needed to be written about and Adichie makes that history highly accessible.
    • 5/5
      I am exceeding glad to have had a chance to read this wonderful book. Easy to read and so well written, Adichie has brought the Biafran war with its hate and ethnic cleansing and mass starvation and tragedy right to us so vividly. But in so doing it is not all hopeless. Characters shine through, hope shines through the hopelessness. It is not a book about war, it is about ordinary people in an extraordinary setting; their lives, their loves, their dreams.I thought four of the five major characters were exceedingly well drawn, but just could not get to like or identify with Odenigbo at any stage, and felt the way he reacted was not very 'in character'. But then again, in times of war when such unbelievable atrocities are committed, I guess lots of us could behave 'out of character'.The story really brought a tragic period of history home to me. Personal stories always illuminate the political background, and Adichie has woven this fictional human narrative into the facts so masterfully and compassionately that you feel almost that you know these people as friends. At the time, very few people knew precisely what was going on behind the Nigerian blockades. In writing this book, Adichie will ensure that many more people today know what happened, and hopefully will not forget.Another interesting fact about the Nigerian-Biafran War I learned is that it was as a result of this conflict that the organisation known as Médecins Sans Frontières ("Doctors Without Borders") came into being.
    • 3/5
      I wasn't totally convinced by this prize-winning novel. It's the sort of book that makes one feel guilty if not highly praised because of its subject matter, the divisive and terrorising war in in Biafra. My problem was that except for the young boy, Ugwu, employed in the household at the beginning I had difficulty in caring overmuch about any of the characters.
    • 5/5
      Read this book for a host of reasons: it's beautifully written, deeply moving, evocative, historically accurate, and illuminating. I would say it teaches with delicacy and verve; I never felt pounded by any kind of agenda, an easy trap to fall into when the book's subject is as heartrending as Adichie's.Adichie gives her readers a glimpse into the lives of a group of people caught in the turmoil of the Nigerian civil war (1967-1970). Focusing on 2 Igbo sisters, twins from the southern part of Nigeria, the British boyfriend of one of the sisters, and the houseboy of the other, she traces their movements, their connections, their philosophies, and their fragile and concerted attempts to remain alive and in contact with one another. The result is profound. Don't miss this.
    • 3/5
      This is a novel of twin sisters, Olanna and Kainene which follows them through the Biafran conflict in Nigeria in the sixties. It has really been highly praised by critics. I agree that Adichie does a good job of weaving the romantic and family issues with a compelling historical background. But in my opinion, her technique of episodically following four (or five) different characters doesn't allow her to very richly develop any one of them. I didn't feel well-connected to any of the characters, unlike my experience with her previous novel,"Purple Hibiscus" or her recent book of short stories, which were both brilliant. I would still recommend the book; I just don't think it's as astounding as some critics have claimed.
    • 3/5
      With all the glowing reports on this "must read" book, I certainly expected more. Frankly, I had to drag myself through it and kept getting sidetracked by more interesting books. It seems to take forever for anything much to happen; the book could have been just as powerful at 100-150 pages less. The main characters are crafted well and the book presents a strong portrait of the Biafran wars and their effects. But overall, I was rather disappointed.
    • 4/5
      I heard an interview with this incredible Nigerian author on the BBC Bookclub Podcast and could not find any of her books at shops in the US. Now, in Hong Kong, I have found a copy of "Half of a Yellow Sun" and am finding it absolutely captivating. Beautifully written and telling the far-too-little-known-outside-of-Nigeria history of the Civil War there in the 1960s. The Guardian review places it alongside Pat Barker's Regeneration series and I think that is an excellent comparison in its clear, articulate understanding of a complex conflict and its psychological & intellectual aspects told through the viewpoints of several characters. Fantastic! I can't put it down!
    • 5/5
      a heartbreaking tale through the wrenching events of a country at war and the effects it has on the people involved. i was intrigued by this book from the first to last page. the characters and african culture and landscape were so vivid they practically came to life. what a wonderful and amazing book!
    • 5/5
      This is a story of the Biafran War, a civil war in Nigeria in the late 60's, a time and place I know very little about. The main characters in the book are middle class Biafrans and we follow their struggle to survive the calamities of war times in their country. There was a lot of suffering in the story, but the focus was on hope and humanity, which caught my interest on page one and kept my interest throughout. My only complaint is that the mystery surrounding "the events leading up to Baby's birth" felt forced and unnecessary. It seemed as though the book would have been as good or better if the story had been told straight through without trying to create that mystery. Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed this and would recommend it to anyone.
    • 3/5
      The Nigerian Biafra War of 1967-70 as shown how it affected the lives of several Nigerians caught up in those horrible times. The author sympathetically portrays several characters as representative of all the people. It was a violent time of upheaval: tribe against tribe. This novel brings it home through these people's stories: two expatriates: Odenigbo, a professor; Richard Churchill, a journalist; their twin-sister mistresses, and a young houseboy, Ugwu. The terrible suffering, starvation, disease and violence the people lived through was heart-rending. The section about Richard and the foreign journalists showed so clearly the insensitivity of the outside world. The title comes from the 'half of a yellow sun' shown on the Biafra flag . The book, besides the horrendousness of events, shows waning colonialism and the power of love. These people cling together despite their world falling apart. I learned something of the history of this period from this book, but oh, it was a bleak and depressing time! The author did a marvelous job of conveying her world, but it was so sad. This novel includes several trenchant excerpts from a book Richard writes analyzing this conflict; the title expresses exactly the attitude of the outside world: "The World was Silent When We Died". I wish the author had put in a glossary of Igbo and other African-language terms. Some I could figure out by context if in dialogue, but others, such as foods, escaped me.
    • 5/5
      I cannot praise this book enough. In Half of a Yellow sun we see the nigerian/Biafran war through the eyes of 5 main characters; Ugwu the young house boy newly arrived from his small village, Odenigbo, the University professor who speaks and writes about the radical idea of Biafran(Igbo) succession. Olanna the beautiful and intelligent lover of Odenigbo. Kainene, twin sister who has taken on the responsiblities for the family business and Richard a British ex-pat who is in love with Kainene and feels as strongly for Biafra as any native born Igbo. Characters are all well drawn,all 3 dimensional-even the best intentioned can do something wrong-something horrible. Through their eyes we see the horror of the initial massacre and the goverments lack of response that leads to succession. Though the horror is fully realized Adiche doesn't make demons out of the Nigerians or the Igbo. She shows how violence&corruption existed on both sides. Best book read in a very long time!
    • 5/5
      I listened to this book which was narrated by the stage actress Zainab Jah. She did a terrific job and it really added to the experience of the book to have her voicing the characters in, what seems to me, authentic accents. This book takes place in Nigeria during the 1960s and culminates when the Biafran nation is overcome by the better armed and financed Nigerian soldiers. I did not know much about the Biafran war and the quest for independence of an Igbo nation until this book and I thought the author did a fantastic job of bringing that period to life.Nigeria consists of a number of different tribes, chief among them the Igbo and Hausa tribes who have long been in conflict. The Igbo seem to be the monied and intellectual class which causes them to be resented by the others. The story centres on twin sisters, Olanna and Kainene, daughters of a rich merchant who have been educated in England. When they return to Nigeria Olanna becomes a professor in the Igbo university while Kainene goes into the fathers business in Port Harcourt. Olanna moves in with her Igbo lover, Odenigbo, who is a professor of mathematics. Kainene refers to him as Olanna's revolutionary lover because Odenigbo and his friends gather in the house most nights to talk about politics and reform. Kainene has a white British man, Richard, as a lover. He lives in the same town as Olanna and Odenigbo while he tries to write a book about Nigeria. The other main character is Odenigbo's houseboy, Ugwu, who comes to work as an uneducated village boy but with support from his master (as he calls Odenigbo) he goes to school, learns to read and write and becomes fascinated by the talk of the people who gather in his master's house. He is fiercely supportive of Olanna and very protective of the little girl raised by Olanna and Odenigbo who is called Baby throughout the book. There is an incident that drives Olanna and Kainene apart until the late days of the Biafran war. As the whole world knows the poverty in Biafra was extreme and even privileged people like the sisters and their lovers scramble for food. They are also both driven out of their homes by the invading Nigerian forces. Olanna and Odenigbo actually have to moves a number of times, each time ending up in a place worse than the previous. Finally they are taken in by Kainene and Richard and the sisters finally achieve a rapprochement. For a while Ugwu was missing having been captured by Biafran soldiers needing fresh recruits. Ugwu learned to make and detonate a crude explosive device and killed a number of opposing soldiers until he was badly injured himself. His experiences as a soldier haunt him as do all the deaths and rapes that occurred during the war to people he loved. Although Richard never completes his book Ugwu writes one that documents the war experience. This is a powerful book telling a powerful story. It truly deserves a place on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list.
    • 5/5
      A brilliant novel with brilliant characterisations. I also really enjoyed how the narrative switched back and forth between a time before and during the Biafran conflict. I'm not sure in my own mind how this affects the novel's impact as a piece of war fiction. The waste of life is evident, but does the complacency and idealism of the university characters make them complicit in what happened, or is their early existence something to aspire to, something that would stopped the war if more thought along the same lines. Of course, the author does not let us know, but I found it a little frustrating not to be clear in my own mind. In part I think this was because of a lack of characters drawn in detail from more humble beginnings. Ugwu the houseboy does not count because he aspires in every way to be like his master. Superb novel then, from a superb storyteller; but just a bit more on the historical context, more characters from all sides and this could have added up to an African 'War and Peace'.
    • 5/5
      Wow. Just as good as everyone said it was.
    • 5/5
      I LOVED this book. I knew nothing about the Nigerian civil war, or really anything about Nigeria. But this book is about more than a war. The characters are fully developed--they fall in love, have children, deal with issues like infertility, class status, race, and family problems. Plus, I love books told by multiple characters. The narrators include an Ugwu houseboy, an upper class Ugwu woman, and a british man trying to not be an outside in Nigeria. This gives the reader the context of Nigeria prior to the beginning of the war.Another reviewer compared it to Mistry's A Fine Balance, which is one of my all time favorite books. That one is set in India, and is so worth reading to understand India's modern history.The amazing thing about Adiche is she is very young. I think she is probably still in her 20s so she had to do a lot of research and talk to many family members and friends who had experienced the war.I was lucky to see Adicie speak last week at a local bookstore. She is absolutely gorgeous and had a beautiful deep voice. The interviewer was a little lacking, but she still said some very interesting things. She talked about how ignorance bothers her less than people who act like know it alls. For example, she says she knows so little about many countries, why should she expect Americans to know Nigeria's history? But they can learn. What bothers her more is when people visit an African country for 2 weeks and then come back to the states and say "This is how we need to fix Africa!" She also talked about how she hates being considered a spokesperson for Nigeria. People only want her to write about serious subjects and put Nigeria in a good light. She hates that since she is one person...how can she be the voice of all of Nigeria? Also, why should she always talk about war, politics, devastation? Nigerians fall in love, have babies, worry about work etc. She also talked about being a writer and how she doesn't know how a story would end or how characters will act. Sometimes she is surprised by what the character says or a character will branch off in an unexpected direction. I'm very excited to read her future works.