Soda Pictures, Shareman Media Ltd, Present Thandie Newton (Olanna), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Odeningbo), Anika Noni Rose (Kainene), Joseph Mawle (Richard), John Boyega (Ugwu), Onyeka Onyenu (Mama), Babou Ceesay (Okeoma), Susan Wokoma (Amala), Jude Orhorha (Harrison), Jenevieve Nnaji (Miss Adebayo), Gloria Young (Mrs. Ozorbia), Wale Ojo (Chief Okonji), Oyo Lijadu (proof. Ezeka), Naya Amobi (Ariza), Zack Orji (Chief Azobia),
This is an epic story of African descent. It could be in the class of Gone with the Wind (1939). Matter of fact, both stories, written by women, Mitchell and Ngozi, are tales of love affairs set in the time of squalor as the whirlwind of politics swirls around them. The American and Nigerian Civil Wars raged. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Margaret Mitchell used the civil wars in their respective countries as backdrops to tell vivid, untold stories.
I can start examining Adichie’s treatise by dividing the story into two levels: one political and the second, human (romance). Just when Nigeria is ready to take a sigh of relief from the British, ethnic differences that had been lying dormant but secretly brewing in the country’s deeper recesses suddenly, volcanically erupt into the open, like the proverbial cat––British–– out of the town, the mice play. For the first time, neighbors openly accused each other of their misfortunes. “The trouble with the Igbo people is that they want to control everything…they own all the shops, control civil service, even the police….” A Yoruba could comment. and a segment of the population decided to go their own way. But the federal government of the new Nigeria couldn’t accept secession and war, a nasty civil war broke out, and the young literates, in Adichie’s novel, Half of A Yellow Sun, are caught in the crosshairs:
“My point is that the only authentic identity for an African is his tribe. I’m a Nigerian because the Whiteman created Nigeria and gave me that identity. I am black because the Whiteman constructed black to be different …but I was Igbo before the Whiteman came.” Concludes, Professor Odennigbo (Chiwetel Ejiofor).
Suddenly, the once drinking pals become suspicious of one another. Amid the drunken milieu of the independent celebration, Miss Adebayo (Genevieve Nnaji) comments,
“They’re calling it an Igbo coup.”
“What about the killings on university campuses? The White expatriates are encouraging them. You’d be one of them if you were not in Igboland. What sympathy do you have?”
“To mean that secession is the only way doesn’t mean I have no sympathy for them.”
“Did your uncle die? You’re going back to your people in Lagos, and nobody will harass you for being Yoruba. Professor Odeningbo pointedly put it to her.
Civil strife has come home to roost among the once drinking educated buddies (Nigerians).
The twin sisters, Olanna (Thandie Newton) and Kainene (Anika Noni Rose), Yale graduates and Oxford to boot, both products of the upper crust of wealth and high society; powdered their noses, glossed their lips, and wore the finest jewelry, looked at themselves in the mirror, assured themselves, and satisfyingly giggled, they stepped out into the refreshing night air of Lagos and mingled with the equally well-placed Nigerians and expatriates, reveling in the new celebrations of Nigerian independence. Adichie’s characters stepped into the night and its impending turmoil. A world they never bargained for.
Kainene stays to take care of family business, and Olanna moves up north to Nsukka to teach sociology at the university, where she meets the radical Igbo revolutionary Professor, a Biafran sympathizer. Kainene in Lagos dates Richard, an English writer, Joseph Mawle (Richard). Adichie’s story explores various themes, including relationships, romantic love, self-acceptance, infidelity, and the mother of Professor Odenigbo, who disapproves of Olanna for marrying her son. “I hear you did not suck your mother’s breast,” and dismisses her as the “Educated Witch.” I can conclude that Half of A Yellow Sun bears a semblance of Love in the Time of Cholera, the Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s masterpiece novel. And as a commentator on Cholera rightly states, “Love is a disease just as cholera is a disease.” Adichie poetically presents this here in Half of A Yellow Sun.
Meanwhile, Olanna and Odenigbo, on the other side of the literary spectrum, are going through rough times in their relationship. Odenigbo’s mother, upon seeing Olanna swiftly dismisses her as the woman who couldn’t be breastfed; her first proclamation of dislike for her son’s fiancé. And from thereon, she planned a series of intrigues to sabotage the relationship. Poor son, the filial loyalty to his mother crushes him throughout the story. We see her bringing a native village woman, Amala (Susan Wokoma), into the household, who may be pregnant with her son. She agreed to keep the baby, but when she later found out the child was a girl, she refused to take her in.
Olanna, upon finding out about Odenigbo’s affair moves out. During that time, Richard moved to Nsukka, and he and Olanna had a one-night fling, fueled by too much wine. Olanna’s initial anger regarding Odenigbo fathering a child outside their relationship did not persist, and she found herself missing her fiancé, and comes back to him and later confesses to her infidelity with her sister’s lover, Richard. Odenigbo angrily forbade Richard from revisiting Olanna. As if this is a common spiritual understanding between twins, Kainene’s only revolt at hearing her sister had affairs with Richard is, “Use the next room.”
While the infidelities were taking place in the world of the twins, a coup had taken place, and a Biafran flag had been hoisted at the thoroughfare, for the world to see. And we see it, followed by riots and lootings everywhere. Loved ones are killed. Odenigbo’s mother meets her fate as she refuses to join her son to evacuate. Olanna drags Odenigbo’s three-year-old daughter everywhere they go. Just when Olanna and Odenigbo have taken marital oaths, pandemonium breaks out with a bomb blast next to the ceremony. Then it is all mayhem. Armageddon!
I could attempt to break the code Adichie tried to hide behind the title of her illustrious work of art, let me, with my rudimentary literary knowledge, try to decipher what she meant and why she chose the figurative symbol ‘Yellow Sun’ as a title. Please tell me if I’m wrong, but the yellow sun typically denotes the beginning of a new day, the start of a new era. Is Adichie in sympathy with the Biafran secession from the Nigerian Federation when she crowned her work Half of A Yellow Sun? I guess not. If I can question Adichie’s choice of title for her novel, I can equally question Dickens’ title for A Tale of Two Cities or Gone with the Wind. Both stories reflect the turmoil in their respective environments. Sometimes writers are carried away, like prophets, in a vivid sensation, and go about naming names. Half of A Yellow Sun is beckoning the break of a new Biafra, separate from the Nigerian Federation, even with a dingily orange colored rising sun, but at the same time glorifying–commenting, I could say– on the rise of Igbos, breaking off from the greater federation, and a love story in the time of cholera!