And the Other Half

This year the novel continued to amaze by collecting ever newer idioms

In chimamanda ngozi adichie8217;s new novel, The World Was Silent When We Died is the title of the book project of an English writer living in Nigeria-Biafra in the sixties. Yet he abandons the project, remarking that the story was never his to tell. In Half of a Yellow Sun, Adichie makes it her story. She recounts the brief tale of this small Igbo nation created by secession from Nigeria until, less than three years later, after a bitter war, a painful famine and a million deaths, Biafra collapses and returns to become a part of Nigeria.

The Nigerian-born Adichie sets her story in the university town of Nsukka where she went to school. Odenigbo is a university lecturer filled with revolutionary zeal, but he is not the central protagonist of Adichie8217;s story. Her story revolves around the lives of three people 8212; Ugwu, a young village boy who works as a houseboy for Odenigbo; Odenigbo8217;s lover Olanna, an England-educated woman from Lagos who leaves her wealthy industrialist family to come and live with him; and Richard, an English writer and admirer of Igbo-Ugwu art who falls in love with Olanna8217;s ambitious twin sister Kainene. Although the story takes them into a complex web of disappointments and betrayals, they are all compelling characters 8212; honest, sensitive and all too human 8212; and we care for them. Here, for example, is Ugwu8217;s arrival from the village to Odenigbo8217;s house, and the young boy8217;s thrill of discovery:

8220;Master turned back to his book. Ugwu stood there. Master flipped past some pages and looked up. 8216;Ngwa, go to the kitchen; there should be something you can eat in the fridge.8217;

8220;8216;Yes, sah.8217;

8220;Ugwu entered the kitchen cautiously, placing one foot slowly after the other. When he saw the white thing, almost as tall as he was, he knew it was the fridge. His aunty had told him about it. A cold barn, she had said, that kept food from going bad. He opened it and gasped as the cool air rushed into his face. Oranges, bread, beer, soft drinks: many things in packets and cans were arranged on different levels and, and on the topmost, a roasted shimmering chicken, whole but for a leg. Ugwu reached out and touched the chicken. The fridge breathed heavily in his ears. He touched the chicken again and licked his finger before he yanked the other leg off, eating it until he had only the cracked, sucked pieces of bones left in his hand.8221;

Adichie8217;s narrative intertwines the personal experiences and reflections of these three very different people against the painfully vivid backdrop of the Nigerian-Biafran war. Their daily discussions about post-colonial Nigeria continue while news comes in about the progressively deteriorating political situation, one coup followed by another, one horrific massacre after another, until finally the republic of Biafra is formed by seceding from Nigeria.

Half of a Yellow Sun is a passionate story about love, forgiveness and humanity. It is also, inevitably, a deeply political epic about class, race, identity, and the scars of colonialism. The 1977-born Adichie has compelling personal reasons for telling this tale: while her grandmothers survived the war, her grandfathers did not. Her first novel, Purple Hibiscus 2003, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize; Half of a Yellow Sun takes her much further on the project of looking directly at some of the most anguished moments of modern African history.