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May 13, 2010

Milan/zzz rated it:

She did it again. And she did it (again) masterfully! While reading this novel I was often thinking of García Márquez’s words: ”The worst enemy of politicians is a writer” and I would amplify that with not only of politicians. Now, I’m not sure if Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has had intention to accuse (probably not) but you cannot avoid truth and, as always truth is hurting so badly.

Half of a Yellow Sun (related with Biafran flag, look the photo) is a story about birth and short life o More...

2 comments like (19 people liked it)

Nov 19, 2008

Endah rated it:

Sumpah! Sebelum membaca novel ini, saya tidak tahu bahwa ada negara Biafra di peta dunia. Bahkan nama Biafra pun baru pertama kali ini saya dengar. Republik kecil ini terletak di sebelah tenggara Nigeria. Tetapi itu dahulu. Kalau Anda mencarinya di peta bumi sekarang, sampai lebaran monyet pun tak akan bakal Anda temukan tanah air orang-orang Igbo itu. Sebab, Republik Biafra hanya berumur 3 tahun saja (30 Mei 1967 – 15 Januari 1970). Kini, Biafra kembali ke sejarah asalnya, menjadi bagian dari More...

9 comments like (8 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2011

K.D. rated it:

Magic. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born 1977) seemed to possess a magic wand that she was able to weave a story that was not supposed to be interesting for me: an Asian who have not been to Africa except seeing parts of that continent in the movies and reading Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Adichie turned an “uninteresting” story that speaks lucidly, bravely and beautifully about that tumultuous event that happened in her country Nigeria during the latter part of the 60’s when she was not even More...

6 comments like (10 people liked it)

May 13, 2010

Hannah rated it:

I'm getting into a bad habit with not finishing books, but I found this book really challenging and it didn't interest me enough for it to be an enjoyable challenge; it was just a chore. I'm not familiar at all with African politics, and I don't think Adichie really had that sort of audience in mind when writing 'Half of a Yellow Sun' - again, perhaps if I had engaged with her characters on a more personal level, or found the narrative more interesting, then this would have been a great opportun More...

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

May 13, 2010

Christina Stind rated it:

"May we always remember." This is how Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ends her author's note at the back of this book about the Nigeria-Biafra war 1967-70. But the thing is - I didn't know about this war before reading this novel. In fact - I had never even heard of Biafra before...

So this novel did what I love when fiction do - it captured me by it's story while at the same time I learned something new. And even though Adichie didn't dive into the blood and gore of war, she manag More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

May 03, 2010

Shannon rated it:

This is the powerful true story of the tragic civil war in Nigeria between 1967 and 1970, and the creation and defeat of Biafra. Nigeria itself is a fairly modern creation, like most African countries, its borders formed by its colonisers. And like Rwanda, differences between tribes were encouraged and fostered by the colonisers until they reached a peak of hate and murder. I didn't know this about Nigeria. I knew, from reading Say You’re One of Them and Little Bee that persecution and strife er More...

3 comments like (12 people liked it)

May 13, 2010

Sandhya rated it:

The Biafran civil war, a terrible blot on Nigerian history and humanity, has not surprisingly, found voice in almost all major literary works produced in the country so far. Adichie was not born when the war happened but says that she grew up in its shadows and could never forget how she lost several of her family members to a situation, which was entirely man-made. This naturally, allows the author to recount incidents with unusual fervour, giving graphic images of the horrors that descended on More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Mar 20, 2008

Jess rated it:

Okay, so if I got to pick how I learn my world history of civilized cultures, I would pick to have this author, or a fair equivalent, write this kind of heartfelt bio of the defining struggles in their generation.

I bought this because I had heard this woman interviewed months before when it came out in hardcover. The interview intrigued me - the author spoke about how she was able to write from the perspective of a young boy (I think he is 12 when we start).
The book is real More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

May 13, 2010

Siria rated it:

Set in Nigeria in the 1960s, Half of a Yellow Sun tells the story of estranged twin sisters, Olanna and Kainene, as rising ethnic and nationalist tensions culminate in the Biafran secession and subsequent war. It's a fascinating and powerful book on many levels, detailing a conflict which the majority of people in the west are shamefully ignorant of; and yet I'm of two minds about it.

I liked the clarity of Adichie's prose, the intelligence and observation with which she writes, and More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

May 13, 2010

Zen rated it:

Excellent -- substantial and compulsively readable. The characters were like people! I felt I knew them by the end. And I liked how people did bad things and they -- and the people around them -- had to struggle to come to terms with those things; they weren't just smote by some plot twist reserved for evildoers. It felt real.

I feel like I should say more, but don't have anything useful to say! It was just really impressive. An enormously kind book, despite the brutality it portrays.

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 21, 2011

Lisa rated it:

WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS BOOK IF YOU EVER WANT TO FIND ANOTHER BOOK SATISFYING.

Adichie makes enormous strides in her second novel. While her first displayed exceptional writing, this one incorporates a great deal more complexity in characters - both quality and the quantity, and conflict - political and domestic.

The novel is set during the Nigerian-Biafran wars in the 1960s. It begins during a time of relative peace and the reader gets to witness the call for revolutio More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 19, 2008

Philip rated it:

Something of a disappointment

It is not often that a novel comes to hand that has been prized, praised and pre-inflated. Half of a Yellow Sun was in that category when I opened it and began to read. And I was captivated immediately. I read the first hundred pages at a pace, delighting in the ease with which the Chimanada Ngozi Adichie used language to draw me into the middle-class clique centred on the University of Nsukka which provides the core characters of her book. Their infideli More...

1 comment like (11 people liked it)

May 13, 2010

Jasper rated it:

This book is good, flow easily from page 1 and was like a smooth glass of perfumed white wine after a whole load of harsh throat grabbers BUT I had a few problems with it that left me feeling troubled:

1. Some of the characters were actually caricatures, Richard was hardly believable as a real person and the basis for his character as described by her in a Radio 4 interview recently (based in part on Frederick Forsyth??!!) belies the character she presents us - misplaced, impotent, we More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 19, 2011

Nina rated it:

I was captivated by this story. I thought Adichie very convincingly portrayed the complex relationships between the characters, and also impressively (given she was born after the Biafran war) wove the historical context into the story. It was touching and devastating. I think I liked the first two thirds or so better than the last - I don't know if it dragged on a bit at the end or it started to lose its cohesiveness - and the inappropriately abrupt ending left me unsatisfied with how it ult More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2012

Shivanee rated it:

Excerpted from the full review:

"Half of a Yellow Sun is a meeting place for stories, told by three vastly different, irrevocably connected characters. Ugwu, a precocious boy from an impoverished village, is sent to tend house for the eccentric, eloquent Odenigbo, a lecturer at Nigeria’s Nsukka University. Overcome by the incredible improvement in his living situation, Ugwu becomes quickly devoted to pleasing his ‘Master’, as he insists on referring to the enigmatic lecturer and More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 13, 2010

Jayaprakash rated it:

An extremely powerful book. No stylistic hi-jinks; instead Adichie uses a clear, lucid narrative voice that rarely draws attention to itself. Vivid and memorable portraits of characters, both central and peripheral. An epic narrative that tells the tale of the Biafran secession and its tragic end through the lives of a handful of characters. Adichie does not lose track of the larger story while focusing on her protagonists, nor does she merely manipulate hollow-man characters who are subservient More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 22, 2008

JoAnn/QuAppelle rated it:

This is a recent winner of the Orange Prize, and deservedly so.

Adichie's wonderful narrative skills are showcased in this book, in which she relates the post-colonial horrors in Nigeria, which, like most African nations, is comprised of many different regions, which co-exist within artificial boundaries drawn by the European powers that formerly controlled the area. In drawing these boundaries, little concern was shown for the historic African boundaries or population groups. This b More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 13, 2010

Samar rated it:

This is one of the best book i ever read and the first Novel i read a bout Africa.The writer engaged me to be a seeker of truth, and reality while I enjoy a magnificence piece of art. When I read I just feel the music of her smooth language touch my ears and spread pleasure everywhere. i loved even her speeches as she was taking about the relationship between love and war .

“I wrote this novel because I wanted to write about love and war, and in particular because I grew up More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Apr 09, 2008

Raghu rated it:

This novel is a love story set in the backdrop of the Biafran civil war in Nigeria in the late 1960's. The main characters are a pair of twin sisters who are well-connected and from the upper strata of Nigerian society belonging to the Igbo tribe. The author takes us through their love life - Olanna with her Igbo left-wing revolutionary academic Odenigbo and her twin Kainene with her white English journalist and aspiring author Richard. As the story unfolds, you get an idea of the liberal sexual More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 10, 2008

Lisa rated it:

I really liked this book, but even though the writing is superb and the author crafts a good story, I did not love it. The main reason is that I usually enjoy historical fiction books, but in this instance, I remember this era and the news coming out of Biafra/Nigeria, especially the news of the starving children with the huge bellies. (A close friend of mine endlessly collected money for this cause, to which I generously donated. Turns out the food the money was to provide probably never did ge More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 13, 2008

realityshowgirl rated it:

I am currently reading Half Of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Half Of A Yellow Sun
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Fiction
435 pages

With her award-winning debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was heralded by the Washington Post Book World as the “21st century daughter” of Chinua Achebe. Now, in her masterly, haunting new novel, she recreates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an indepe More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 23, 2010

Kitty rated it:

Shoot I lost my new review. This book did not impress me, I thought. But it kept playing in my mind. I had to go back and re-read the skipped pages. The story of a birth of a nation ,that was eventually starved into submission. Ethnic cleansing, corrupt government and apathy from the world community was a contributing factor also. Biafra was a fledgling country trying to come of age in Africa in the 60's and 70's. This book shoves us into the horror and violence of the time. It will stay with me More...

10 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 17, 2008

Sarah rated it:

Despite an embarrassingly shallow familiarity with African history, I have to think that this book does an amazing job of capturing a course of events that played out in most post-colonial countries across the continent. As a piece of literature, the book has its weaknesses including some romantic melodrama and an abrupt ending, but as a testimonial of the dehumanizing effects of civil war it is devastating. The characters are faced with making successively more debilitating compromises as the More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 20, 2007

Abeer rated it:

The few times I could pause to meta-think while reading Chimamanda's brilliant narrative of the Biafran war, I was in awe of her ability to create character, plot, drama, to evoke history through fiction. She was able to get into the heads of characters are different as a young upper-class Ibo woman, a teenage village boy, a white man in Africa. Each person in "Half of a Yellow Sun" is compelling and complicated, and the story is intense.

I particularly liked the way sh More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 20, 2008

Bobby rated it:

A fiction based on non-fiction events. Background is the civil war in Nigeria with the formation of the country of Biafra (briefly) by the Igbo people. However, the emphasis is more on the relationships between two twin sisters and their partners, parents, family and friends. The author, an African, did an excellent job of portraying the events without making the book tedious, i.e., it remains a fiction/fast-read. A great balance of expressing the tension between modern and ancient Africa, as we More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2008

Elesa rated it:

My book club introduced me to this fabulous author. Half of a Yellow Sun is a reference to the Biafran flag and this is a story of the Biafra seceding from Nigeria - ultimately unsuccessfully. A humanitarian crisis developed in the south during the war and this is a story highlighting the experiences of people from many walks of life during that time. I've ordered Purple Hibiscus - her first book - and look forward to reading it. I read on the author's website that she's now working on a sto More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 06, 2008

Katherine rated it:

Adichie’s novel begins in the early 1960s in newly independent Nigeria and follows a group of middle-class intellectuals through military coups, genocidal killings, and the secession of the doomed Igbo state, Biafra. I read this book right before I visited my fiance's family living in Igbo country in Nigeria. My future mother-in-law provided memories of war planes flying low enough overhead for her to see white pilots maneuvering the aircrafs. Although i will never be able to grasp this time in More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Maggie rated it:

This was quite possible the most moving book I have read this year. The story of a family and their friends in Nigeria during the Biafran War. This book reveals life in middle class Nigeria and gives an insight into the terrible internal struggles that Nigeria endured in the 1960's. At the same time it recounts the life and loves of twin sisters and how they reconcile years of differences when the tribulations of the war affect their lives so deeply. A really moving tale that carries you alon More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 15, 2008

Kerry rated it:

This book follows the lives of twin sisters in Nigeria in the late 1960s through their ups and downs. The themes of family, love, marriage, class, prejudice, education, war and adversity drew me into a tale with a unfamiliar backdrop. The depth of the characters is revealed when they are presented with ever increasing challenges. It left me thinking how I would react if I found myself in these situations? I also enjoyed the perception of the Western Media that was presented in the book. More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 27, 2008

Eilisha rated it:

wow, this book is amazing. for a while (me being impatient) i was starting to wonder when does the exciting bit start, but that is what makes it all the more incredible - we get to know the characters and so we empathise with them more. to people watching sky news every day, these people are nameless and we are not aware of their everyday lives or the lives they had before terrible events changed them, but we know these characters, they are normal people thrown into a terrible situation and ther More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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