Half of a Yellow Sun

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

There are two answers to the things they will teach you about our land: the real answer and the answer you give in school to pass. You must read books and learn both answers.

They all laughed. There was something habitual about it, as if they had had different variations of this conversation so many times that they knew just when to laugh.

She saw his book as an entity that already existed and could therefore be finished. He, however, was not even sure what his subject was.

I started thinking about running away the first day I arrived there.” “Did you?” “Many times. They always found me. Sometimes just down the street.” “What were you running to?” “What?” “What were you running to?” Richard thought about it for a while. He knew he was running away from a house that had pictures of long-dead people on the walls breathing down on him. But he didn’t know what he was running toward. Did children ever think about that? “Maybe I was running to Molly. I don’t know.” “I knew what I wanted to run to. But it didn’t exist, so I didn’t leave,” Kainene said, leaning back on her seat.

here was a man who trusted the eccentricity that was his personality, a man who was not particularly attractive but who would draw the most attention in a room full of attractive men.

His aunty’s face was opaque, her tone flat: the demeanor of a person who carried more bad news than she had delivered.

Then 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.

It frightened him that he slept well at nights, that he was still calmed by the scent of orange leaves and the turquoise stillness of the sea, that he was sentient. “I’m going on. Life is the same,” he told Kainene. “I should be reacting; things should be different.”

She turned toward the kitchen and nearly fell beside the dining table because the weight in her chest was too large, not measured to fit her size.

“You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. Do you hear me?” Aunty Ifeka said. “Your life belongs to you and you alone, soso gi.

Amala sat up and took the enamel plate, her eyes focused on the floor. Olanna was watching her. Perhaps it was hate she felt for Odenigbo. How much did one know of the true feelings of those who did not have a voice?

“Holy Jehovah destroy the vandals with holy-ghost fire! Holy Jehovah fight for us!” “God is fighting for Nigeria,” Alice said. “God always fights for the side that has more arms.”

she thought how quick leaving had been and how slow returning was.