Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) is one of the seminal works of literature written by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born in 1977). It chronicles the Nigerian Civil War of the late 1960s, depicting a politically charged climate. In particular, Adichie focuses on the fates of characters of Igbo descent. Members of this ethnic group were targeted in a series of attacks that took place in northern Nigeria in 1966. This bloodshed was followed by the formation of the state of Biafra in southern Nigeria and by a war that, as depicted in the novel, saw the Biafrans fighting more formidable Northern forces. Hostilities came to an end in 1970.
The text falls under the category of historical fiction. Beyond depicting the realities faced by civilians, the novel is an extensive critique of war - a source of disruption, starvation, sickness, and senseless violence in Half of a Yellow Sun. To an extent, the text also brings in historical figures with its frequent references to Colonel Ojukwu, the head of the Biafran government. However, the novel is more concerned with the reactions of people who exist at some remove from the center of power than with the machinations of governments and politicians. Premised on a few important structural splits, the story is told from the perspectives of three significant characters: Olanna, Ugwu, and Richard. Two of these characters - Olanna and Ugwu - are of Igbo descent, while Richard is a British expatriate who is sympathetic to the Biafran cause. Adichie in this manner explores a diverse set of facets of African life, depicting characters who can no longer take their privileges for granted (Olanna, Richard) or who are just beginning to enjoy some of the benefits of a changing modern world (Ugwu).
Half of a Yellow Sun, along with the novels Purple Hibiscus and Americanah, has helped to establish Adichie as a prominent voice in global and postmodern literature. Reviewing Adichie's chronicle in the New York Times, Rob Nixon praised the novel for speaking "through history to our war-racked age not through abstract analogy but through the energy of vibrant, sometimes horrifying detail." The book would go on to win the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction (since renamed the Women's Prize for Fiction), and Adichie herself would receive a MacArthur "Genius Grant" worth half a million dollars in 2008.
While works of fiction such as Half of a Yellow Sun form much of the basis of Adichie's acclaim, the author may be best known to casual readers for her much publicized lecture "The Danger of a Single Story." This presentation emphasizes the need to see past stereotypes and to ask critical questions about modern cultures - including one's own. Although Adichie herself did not live through the Nigerian Civil War, her book was meticulously researched and was meant to capture the complex reality of a fraught historical period. Her willingness to consider a balance of cultural perspectives, her focus on Igbo culture in the face of modernization, and her stark, unsentimental prose have helped to cast her as a successor to Chinua Achebe - a hallowed Nigerian author who exhibits similar strengths of expression and whose words provide the epigraph for Half of a Yellow Sun.
In 2013, a film adaptation of Adichie's novel appeared. Despite the talents of its all-star cast - Thandie Newton as Olanna, John Boyega as Ugwu, and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the professor Odenigbo - the film received middling reviews. Writing in The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw noted that the "film is often stately and sluggish with some very daytime-soapy moments of emotional revelation," though the film's "well-intentioned and heartfelt" nature was a somewhat redeeming feature.
