Half of a Yellow Sun
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Harper Perennial, HK$120
Half of a Yellow Sun is one of those books you know will be special from the start. And that's not just because of the praise heaped on its author by figures such as Chinua Achebe, Edmund White and Joyce Carol Oates. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's follow-up novel to her Booker-longlisted Purple Hibiscus is a dedication to the grandfathers she never knew becase they were killed in the Biafran uprising in Nigeria. But although the 1967 civil war is the pivot for her stout narrative, the book is equally about love and the different ways it's expressed. Odenigbo, a maths professor whose revolutionary fervour is magnetic, is the reason Olanna readily gives up a life of privilege. There's also an English writer who goes native in search of his identity and, probably since Adichie wanted to address the war's impact on different levels of society, a houseboy whose loyalty to Odenigbo is sealed the minute his master starts educating him. Adichie's insights deserve special mention because she was born just a decade after the southern region of Biafra fought without success to secede.
