"The other half of the sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Audio 04:00

By: Tirthankar Chanda Follow

Heir to Nigeria's great literary tradition, Chimamanda Adichie is the new great voice of English-speaking Africa. His superb Tolstoy novel about the Biafra war The Other Half of the Sun has entered the repertoire of classics in contemporary literature.

Publicity

A few words about the author

The masterful Chimamanda Adichie. This quarantine is undoubtedly the most talented novelist of her generation, who took over from the great pioneers of Nigerian letters that were Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka. She has to her credit three great novels, short stories and daring positions on the question of feminism in Africa and in the world. It was in 2004 that she made herself known by publishing her first novel L'Hibiscus pourpre, which featured a Nigerian family ravaged by the religious fundamentalism of Christian sects. This novel revealed an assertive writing, immersed in social and political reality. The Other Half of the Sun that I would like to invite you to read or reread is the second novel under the pen of the Nigerian, and probably her most successful work.

The ephemeral Biafran republic

This novel tells of the Biafra war which bloodied Nigeria between July 1967 and January 1970. The author stages the material and spiritual dislocation experienced by Nigerians during this dramatic period, with more than a million deaths. The story oscillates between the beginning and the end of the 1960s: it makes us revisit the euphoric period of post-independence when the seeds of civil war were sown and we dwell on the proclamation of independence by the province of Biafra . The title of the novel The Other Half of the Sun is inspired by the flag of the ephemeral Biafran Republic, struck by a golden sun on a black background. However, this is not a testimony, but a work of fiction.

Civil war and catharsis

No doubt, there is a need for catharsis because this past has not really happened. He left deep marks on the collective consciousness which have not yet healed. The novelist explained that by evoking through fiction the sufferings that this war caused, she wanted to contribute to the healing process. The story also draws its ingredients from the family memory of the author whose two grandfathers were killed during the war. Their mourning rocked his childhood. “ Writing this book was a painful experience , remembers the novelist. With each step, I felt like I was walking on shreds of suffering ”.

Why does it work?

This novel owes its success to the elegant writing of Chimamanda Adichie, to the story it tells with a breathtaking economy of means and above all to the unforgettable characters who carry the story. They are complex characters, like, for example, Odenigbo, one of the important protagonists of the novel. A committed intellectual, Odenigbo is in love with the lovely Olanna. Daughter of a wealthy businessman, she abandons the gold and lights of Lagos to live with her idealistic lover. Their loves unfold under the watchful eye of Ugwu, their illiterate young servant, who is nevertheless the consciousness through which the story is filtered. In addition to this trio, the novel has a multitude of secondary, picturesque and memorable characters. Soon all these men and women will be caught up in the whirlwind of war which will severely test their convictions, their feelings, their loyalties, upsetting the binary hierarchies which separate the master from the servant, the colonizer from the colonized, the learned from the illiterate . There is something panoramic and Tolstoy in this War and peace in Nigeria.

The Other Half of the Sun , by Chimamanda Adichie. Mona de Procontal. Gallimard, Paris, 2008 (Available in the Folio pocket collection).

Newsletter With the Daily Newsletter, find the headlines directly in your mailbox

Follow all international news by downloading the RFI application

• Literature
• Books
• Africa

On the same subject

African classical literature

"The Ambiguous Adventure" by Cheikh Hamidou Kane

African classical literature

"Disgrace", by John Maxwell Coetzee

African classical literature

"The Suns of Independence", a masterpiece by Ahmadou Kourouma