Half of a Yellow Sun {Page-Turner}

Where did the idea of reading this book come from? I cannot remember. No matter how hard I try, the memory is gone, erased, vanished. Has it been stolen from me after I finished devouring its pages, during the reading adventure or even before I started reading, blinded by that half of a sun, that brightly mysterious title? 

This is one of the best books I have read this year. 

The novel Half of a Yellow Sun by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been a glorious discovery, a difficult read, an epiphany. It epitomizes all that a book should be: a reliable guide into unknown worlds, a leading thread into tormented history and a larger than life insight into troubled human stories, feelings and minds. All’s well that starts well, as it were, but I could still feel the frailty of untold stories and foresee the cracks in the blissful life of the five main characters. Their dissents, the roughness of the land, social differences were all foreboding hints leading to disintegration. 

Several characters tell the story, starting with thirteen-year-old Ugwu: the young boy joins professor’s Odenigbo as a houseboy and will follow him throughout the pre-Biafran war events, during the war and during the ensuing uncertain period. He’s a symbol of hope, loyalty and trust throughout bouts of violence. 

Odenigbo is the intellectual mind behind the meetings that take place at his house where political, pro-revolutionary and cultural discussions are heated. His political zeal however will bear no fruits; he embodies the lack of action behind political ideals. He will be joined by Olanna who will be his companion and become the mother of his daughter, Baby, from an adulterous relationship. Olanna is a positive soul who will fall only to stand up again and continue with steadfast resolution and conviction. The motherly figure is reassuring in the midst of unsettling events.

Olanna’s twin sister, Kainene, is as different from her as day and night. She’s independent, fierce, cynical. She sees reality in all its cruelty, while never failing to face and challenge it, until the end of the Biafran secession war, when she crosses the enemy lines, never to return. A shining female figure of proaction, she stands tall in the middle of the horror. Kainene’s uncertain destiny leaves us depleted and haunted by the historical and family events that have unfolded before our very eyes. I still wonder whether her disappearance at the end of the book means she’s fallen under the bullets of the Nigerian army or whether she has chosen a different life for herself…

Richard is a British white expatriate thrown in the deadly depths of Nigerian history and Igbo-led Biafran war for independence. He remains an outsider and a keen observer of the war. His ties to Kainene are sealed by love and admiration for her strength and independent spirit. He is involved to the point of proclaiming his pro-Biafra support.

The Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) is the sixth character: Biafra is the Eastern part of Nigeria that has taken its independence into its own hands and hoisted its flag bearing half of a yellow sun. As Nigerian forces build up and raid the country to regain independent Biafra, fury unleashes. Refugees - among which our main characters - loose everything, flee every city and corner of the starving country, hatred is the motto, lives are brutally taken, families shattered. The main characters are faced with cruel choices testing their every nerve, value, feeling and belief. Each and every one of them will be transformed by evil emanating from human beings. Not even young Ugwu will be spared, a child thrown ruthlessly into the darkest side of adulthood. On the battlefield, two factions fight: the pro-Biafra Igbo and Hausa people. The only result will be disintegration where once some kind of common life flourished.

The characters accompany me day and night. The book is a presence you won’t be able to ignore once you’ve accepted to surrender to its vital energy. This is what it is about: survival in a forgotten war and world. Up to you to transport it into your present life and the current historical events. The transposition will, unfortunately, be an easy one.

As I write these words, I’m thinking that what seems like the uncertain ending - the unfinished story - of Kainene and the book itself is deeply linked to the never ending story of love and war on Earth. History, we know, tends to repeat itself. 

We’d better not forget that the loop is never looped…

         

Credits: Canva (edited by TheDaydreamer)