Half of a Yellow Sun (4th Estate Matchbook Classics)

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • From the award-winning, bestselling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists—a haunting story of love and war. • Recipient of the Women’s Prize for Fiction “Winner of Winners” award.

With effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene.

Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war.

• ISBN10: 1400095204
• ISBN13: 9781400095209
• Publish Date: 4 September 2007 (first published 21 August 2006)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Vintage
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 560
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781400095209

Reviews

[nannah]

DNF @ 47%.

Content warnings (so far):
- fatphobia
- misogyny
- incest fantasies
- sexual assault

Representation:
- almost every character is Nigerian

I got to page 203 when I got an uncomfortable feeling from the description, “[his] voice was unmistakable; it was vibrantly male …” and had to look Adichie up. Sure enough, this is the transphobic author who, among things like bullying a trans author under her mentorship, approved of Rowling’s "TERF Manifesto”.

I thought I had deleted all her books from my to-read list, but I must have missed this one. Stopping here doesn’t make me upset; I disliked most of the characters in this book and only didn’t mind the rest.

I’d much rather read someone else’s work.

[moraa]

You can't write a script in your mind and then force yourself to follow it. You have to let yourself be.

3.5 stars

I refuse to believe this book has an end. There has to be more, I have to know more.

[dpfaef]

Very sad and very good.