BY ONYEJE ENE EMAH
We have seen over and over again that history, especially painful history can be reduced to mere dates scribbled on paper if there are no storytellers to tell and retell the deep nuances of an event. We see it in the overlooking of the killing of 15 million Congolese by the Belgian king, Leopold II. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie knows that a people’s progress is tied to their knowledge of their history and her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun is a worthy attempt to avert catastrophe from befalling her nation again.
Written in 2006, the book is about a nation torn by religious intolerance, suspicions, and an ugly mindless battle over who controls the military, the civil service, and the oil but above all, it is about the human spirit, the way it takes on fluidity when situations threaten to break it.
The book, which is set in post-independence Nigeria follows the lives of an ambitious mathematician, a bright young boy, and two sisters and how they navigate love, family, and sisterhood in the heat of the civil war that upturned their lives and changed its course forever.
In this riveting novel, Adichie shows us the horrors of war and gives faces to the thousands who perished from hunger and war injuries during this rather needless war of 1967. She pulled from first-hand eyewitness accounts from her parents, close family, and compatriots who were involved in the Biafran war. It took years of research and three years of nerve-wracking writing to give Nigeria and the rest of the world this classical gift. Adichie’s book transcends art. It is anthropological material and will in centuries to come shine a light on both the past and the future.
Adichie takes on the theme of love,loyalty,suffering and betrayal. Her prose flows with intentionality and enjoyable rhythm. She as Chinua Achebe puts it, “ was born with the gift of ancient storytellers.”
Though written 17 years ago, Half of a Yellow Sun is a must read today as it is evident from happenings that surrounded the 2023 election and its aftermath that Nigerians have forgotten too soon the havoc created by the Nigerian civil war which spanned 1967 through to 1970. Pre and post-election, we saw both young and old people inciting tribal and religious wars, poking old wounds, and encouraging pure hate.
If we as a nation never want to experience the bloodshed that marked the Biafran war, we must avoid inciting violence and shun politically motivated conflicts that are pushed under the guise of religious or tribal wars.
