Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie won the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction (now the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction) for her second novel,

Half of a Yellow Sun

, which tells the story of the Nigerian Civil War (or the Nigerian-Biafran War) in southeastern Nigeria in the late 1960s. Taking her title from the image of the Biafran flag, Adichie uses the love story of Odenigbo and Olanna to show the personal struggle caused by political strife after the British left Nigeria, causing conflict between the Igbo and Hausa peoples – a conflict that eventually led to the war. In this sweeping novel, readers follow Odenigbo, a college professor drawn intellectually—and eventually in practice—to the idea of revolution, and his lover, Olanna, a woman of great beauty and wealth who spurns her high social…

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Citation: Colleen, Clemens. "Half of a Yellow Sun". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 November 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=23017, accessed 19 March 2024.]

23017 Half of a Yellow Sun 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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