This was a remarkable novel. I truly loved it.
It's not the first novel I've read of Adichie, that being Americanah, so I already knew she was a very good author, but still.. first impressions are often wrong.
I'm glad that isn't the case this time around.
Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable piece of fiction wrapped around actual events during the early and late 60's.
It centers around the lives of three characters living in Nigeria just before and during the civil war, when a small part of Nigeria claimed independence and called itselve Biafra. The novel is from the point of view of those that claimed this said independence and the toll they had to pay for trying to make a awry nation right again.
The story doesn't only center on the war, but mainly on the aftermath of it. The famine, the child soldiers, the rapes and most of all the blind eye Western nations turned towards it. It also paints a very good picture of the events leading up to this civil war, so you get a clear idea of why the Biafrans proclaimed their independence in the first place.
Of course it has to do with colonization, just as Belgium has a dark stain in its history called Congo, Great Britain couldn't go without its share of dropping countries like their hot without helping them on their way.
