Half of a Yellow Sun - Audiobook

Synopsis: Winner of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2007, this is a heartbreaking, exquisitely written literary masterpiece. This highly anticipated novel from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is set in Nigeria during the 1960s, at the time of a vicious civil war in which a million people died and thousands were massacred in cold blood. The three main characters in the novel are swept up in the violence during these turbulent years. One is a young boy from a poor village who is employed at a university lecturer's house. The other is a young middle-class woman, Olanna, who has to confront the reality of the massacre of her relatives. And the third is a white man, a writer who lives in Nigeria for no clear reason, and who falls in love with Olanna's twin sister, a remote and enigmatic character. As these people's lives intersect, they have to question their own responses to the unfolding political events. This extraordinary novel is about Africa in a wider sense: about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race; and about the ways in which love can complicate all of these things.

Review: This is the second of Chimamanda's books that I've listened to, the first being 'Purple Hibiscus', and I much preferred this one. Having said that, it's not an easy listen or read. It details the horrors of the Nigerian-Biafran civil war as seen through the eyes of three people ... Ugwu - a lecturers houseboy, Olanna - the lecturer's partner and Richard - the English journalist who is living with Olanna's twin sister Kainene. The writing has such an authenticity to it, frighteningly so as the book progresses .. it's crisp and unflinching in a way that lets you know that the writer knows her subject thoroughly. Like with most books it starts by introducing us to it's main characters, so we join Ugwu as he spends his first day as houseboy to Odenigbo (and sleeps with cooked chicken in his pockets, having been rather overwhelmed by the well stocked fridge) and we read Olanna's account of her first meeting with Odenigbo. Olanna's twin sister is as unlike her as can be, Olanna is beautiful and has a willingness to please whereas Kainene, perhaps as a result of possessing neither of these traits, or at least not possessing them in as much abundance as Olanna, is more wordly and cynical. Kainene is not one of our narrators, but we get to know her well by the narration of her sister and her boyfriend Richard, this is also the case with Olanna's boyfriend, the lecturer, Odenigbo. At this point of time there are just the murmurings and simmerings of war, although the book does jump backwards and forwards, it doesn't stick to a traditional timeline as such .. parts one and three deal with our characters pre-war and parts two and four with the war and aftermath.

But Adichie doesn't just deal with war in itself but the consequences of war, the starvation, corruption and disease, the uncertainty and terror and the feeling of helplessness and anger that comes with the loss of human rights. It's not just facts and figures written down, it's also about how you cope with seeing loved one's suffer or die of malnutrition. It's how you react to seeing people dismembered .. how do you stay sane? How do you keep carrying on when you have seen friends and relations slaughtered, witnessed rape and faced the daily struggle to find food?. It's about the fear of conscription and the battle to keep living for just another day .. how can you get word to your family or find out if they are safe? As the full intensity of the war impacts upon the lives of those that we've come to know, the book really heats up. It's seering, harrowing, uncomfortable stuff and very emotional.

The first part of the book was fairly slow going, and I did find it a struggle to stay engaged, but in a way that made the second part all the more affecting. The narration of the audiobook was fantastic and I think that helped a lot. Without it, I think I might have struggled more with the dialogue and the slow going first half.