Chimamanda Adichie's New Book!

[sapphire]

I just found out that Chimamanda Adichie author of Purple Hibiscus has released a new book Half of a Yellow Sun, it stems from her short story Half of a Yellow Sun
From Amazon:
Set in Nigeria before and during the secession of Biafra, Half of a Yellow Sun revolves around five very different characters; Thirteen-year old Ugwu, the fiercely loyal houseboy to Odenigbo, a revolutionary professor at the University of Nsukka and an unapologetic Biafran nationalist; the compassionate and sensitive Olanna, daughter of a wealthy Igbo businessman, who abandons the nouveau-riche lifestyle of post-independence Lagos for a more sedate, intellectual and passionate life in Nsukka with her lover Odenigbo; Richard, a pro-Biafran British idealist who has a passion for Igbo traditional art and is in love with Olanna's twin sister, the placid, distant and enigmatic Kainene.

The lives of these characters is masterfully woven into the events of that tumultuous decade in Nigeria's history which was marked by the first military coups in the country's history, the anti-Igbo pogroms in Northern Nigeria, the Biafran secession, and the ensuing civil war.

Although the Biafran secession and civil war serve as a backdrop to the novel, Half of a Yellow Sun is not a history of those events. Neither is it a classic war novel. Although the Biafran story is ever-present in the novel, it does not intrude, distort, or overwhelm the central story. Even when the characters are caught in the maelstrom of war, it is still their individual stories that are at the forefront. This is a story of love, betrayal, infidelity, forgiveness, hope, loss, grief, survival, resilience and broken dreams.

As we get to know the principal characters, we cannot stop ourselves from bonding with them - even in their most flawed moments - and wistfully hoping that their dreams would come true. Alas! This is fiction which solidly anchored in history - immutable history. So we know how the outcome of the civil war; the Land of the Rising Sun shall never come to be; the half of the yellow sun (emblem on the Biafran flag) will never grow full-blown, but will wither under the unrelenting attack of federal forces. Nonetheless, we hungrily read on because we desperately want to know whether our protagonists make it out of the war unscathed, and whether their relationships survive the war.

Other great books to check out:
Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Adichie
The Icarus Girl - Helen Oyeyemi
Everything Good Will Come - Sefi Atta
Naija sisters are really taking the literary world by storm...I'm so proud of them!

[naijaboy]

this is definitely a new sunrise for Nigerian Authors ...I read everything good will come and talked about it for weeks ....and i am very happy that Nigerian Women are steping forward and makin thier impression felt.



....We might have to exclude kicthen when designing next generation Nigerian houses

[anddar]

I read the book! It's very good, Adichie has a lot of talent!!

[sapphire]

she sure does, have you read some of her other work?
i'm glad she's getting so much good publicity, she was in Essence a while back, lol see me jumping around like it was me.

[MIprincess]

Currently reading the book, I'll finish it next week hopefully, its pretty good!!

I also LOVED Purple Hibiscus

[dols]

the book is such a good read, purple hibiscus is also quite nice, but i must say half of a yellow sun blows it out of the water sha

[LMJ]

I just picked up the book 2 days ago planning to read it during xmas break but I have started reading it and haven't been able to put it down. She's such a great writer, like "Purple Hibiscus", I feel involved in the lives of the xters. I never knew much about the war, apart from what we were taught in social studies (Igbos wanted to secede, Nigeria wouldn't let them and so there was a civil war, end of story). I know the book is fiction but it has sparked my interest and I want to find out more about events surrounding the war.

[sapphire]

don't quote me on this, but i think the back of the book has resources on the biafran war. If not a simple google search should do the trick. But I've only read only one other well crafted fictitious account of the biafran war and I can't remember who wrote it. It was back in sec. school, great book as well.
Most other books on the biafran war are non-fiction and more of a political recount of the war. i.e boring

But let us know what you come up with.