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Half of a Yellow Sun
Half of a Yellow Sun
Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
With her award-winning debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was heralded by the Washington Post Book World as the “21st century daughter” of Chinua Achebe. Now, in her masterly, haunting new novel, she recreates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an in...  more »
ISBN-13: 9781400095209
ISBN-10: 1400095204
Publication Date: 9/4/2007
Pages: 528
Rating:
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 44

4 stars, based on 44 ratings
Publisher: Anchor
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover, Audio Cassette, Audio CD
Members Wishing: 18
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

reviewed Half of a Yellow Sun on + 52 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 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.
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reviewed Half of a Yellow Sun on + 15 more book reviews
This is a tremendous book, very well written. I encourage readers to also listen to the speech this author recently gave at a TED conference:
http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html#

For anyone with an interest in Nigeria and the Biafran conflict, this is must reading. Her earlier book (for which she was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize), Purple Hisbiscus, is another that is well worth reading.
eadieburke avatar reviewed Half of a Yellow Sun on + 1609 more book reviews
I enjoyed reading this book very much. It was an eye opening look into the Biafran War and the Nigerian culture. Adichie has a beautiful writing style that brings all of her characters to life. It is definitely a book that will be hard to forget. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys history.
maura853 avatar reviewed Half of a Yellow Sun on + 542 more book reviews
Heartbreaking, beautifully written. Enlightened me on a tragic episode in recent history, when the world let down a small nation fighting for its freedom, and allowed thousands to die, for the sake of oil money and post-colonial politics. But, Adichie is honest enough, as a chronicler of events, and such a good writer, that she recognizes that the breakaway state of Biafra wasn't perfect, and that its leaders exploited the hope and idealism of its people, and contributed to their suffering.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a amazing writer. Having been seriously impressed with her collection of short stories, The Thing Around Your Neck https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..., I hesitated to start this, because I didn't dare believe that lightening would strike twice, and she would be as good in the long form as she was in the short.

She is. This lady knows what she's doing -- character, dialogue, setting, imagery. the twists and turns of a complicated story, and a large cast of characters. All beautifully done. The thoughtful, sensitive use of language to create a sense of place, and differentness. I chose that word carefully, because one of the important takeaways from this excellent novel is that it's not different or foreign, or exotic to her. This is the story of her family, and families like hers, and her people. And we are very fortunate to be invited in to hear it, from someone who has the right to tell it -- and knows how to tell it well.

Adichie aces this on both the factual and the metaphorical level. Her chronicle of the Biagran war, starting in the years leading up to Biafra's secession from Nigeria, and ending with its defeat and reabsorption, is clear and easy to follow. As I said above, she is honest enough about the failings of some of the real-life Biafran players, and horrors of real-life events, when Biafrans were at fault, that I trusted her version of events that drove the Igbo minority to secede from Nigeria, and the the world-wide indifference and bad faith that led to their defeat.

But this is a novel, not a history, and it the fictional flourishes that raise this up as a universal saga of survival and love, how trouble changes you (for good and ill). Adichie includes little details that really resonate: a chicken freshly killed for dinner contains a "translucently pale egg ..."; two of the ain characters are twin sisters who, we are repeatedly told, look and act very different (and one has been told all her life that she isn't as beautiful as her sister, which has a life-long affect on her personality and their relationship). But near the end, another character notices, for the first time, "... the similarity in the curve of their lips, the shape of their slightly larger front teeth."

A complicated story, well-told.
reviewed Half of a Yellow Sun on + 412 more book reviews
The intersection of lives in Nigeria during the era of the secession of Biafra. Heartrending descriptions of the horrors and effects of war. Beautifully written, and like "Purple Hibiscus", well worth your time.

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