Half of a Yellow Sun

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

‘I am Nigerian because a white man created Nigeria and gave me that identity. I am black because the white man constructed black to be as different as possible from his white. But I was Igbo before the white man came.’

she wished, more rationally, that she could love him without needing him. Need gave him power without his trying; need was the choicelessness she often felt around him.

She wished there was somebody she could lean against; then she wished she was different, the sort of person who did not need to lean on others,

It is always easier to conquer a more humane people.’