Half of a yellow sun     Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In this historical fiction, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie brings us to the heart of the Nigerian civil war-also known as the Biafran war- through the lives of people who experienced it first-hand.

Throughout her narrative, Mrs. Adichie alternates between pre-war and wartime Nigeria not only making the reader want to know what is going to happen, but what is more this back-and-forth narrative makes us really seize how upside-down people have their world thrown by the war. Starting in Nsukka, the Nigerian university town and moving to Umuahia, in the heart of the Igbo territory, the story will give a photographic meaning to the notions of refugee camps, hunger but also human relationships. The third person narrative, told from the point of view of several characters exposes us the intermingling layers, the different stories of what we can call the Igbo genocide.

First of all, the reader meets Ugwu, a village boy who moves to the city and is employed by Odenigbo and his girlfriend Olanna. As one of the main characters, Ugwu epitomizes how war forces its cruelty on young people and forces them to accomplish unthinkable deeds. As for Odenigbo, he is a professor of Mathematics who gathers the intellectual and perhaps a little, if not revolutionary, at least dissenting part of Nigeria. His girlfriend, Olanna is a woman of higher beauty and intelligence, daughter of a wealthy Igbo man. Olanna's got a twin sister, Kainene, a strong-headed woman who will fall in love with Richard, a British national who will voice an outsider viewpoint, asking the questions we, readers, may be wondering about.

The characters are deep and vivid, what is more Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie depicts a world where situations and choices are more complicated than one may think.

I will just say that the relations between the characters are complex, and I'll let you discover the twists-and-turns by yourselves in this gripping novel.

Written by Virginie

Have you read this book ? What did you think of it ?