A review by boodschappenlijst
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

dark sad tense

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

What can I say? Firsthand narratives of war aren't new to me, and yet this book managed to be so harrowing. The hopelessness of the situation settled deep into me while reading, as if I was experiencing the war right along with the protagonists. The first part of the book paints such a hopeful narrative, only for it to turn around into years of dread and terror.  And somehow, the most striking thing of all is how people must have been so bored, to wait around for three years for aid and a ceasefire to come. 

Admittedly, the sex scenes at the beginning felt a bit gratuitous. I do still wonder whether all of them were necessary. At some point it felt like the author playing up to the trope of conventional white-man literature being full of unnecessary sex. But in the latter half I understood how those scenes were meant to contrast with a situation in which nothing was normal. In which the simple act of laying with each other was a rebellion against the constant fear for life. When nothing is as normal, mundane acts become revolutionary in a sense. 

The ending of the book, revealing

Ugwu as the writer of the book all along, was wonderfully satisfying. I dreaded the white man writing about an African war and centering his own narrative. Ugwu stepping up to become the author almost has a meta-textual meaning:

We, from the Global South, from disenfranchised communities, should be telling our stories ourselves. Half of a Yellow Sun is itself a marvelous example of that. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Rape, Murder, and War