Half of a Yellow Sun summons a gilded age as well as an atrocious war
(The Guardian Books Blog)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie´s novel turns to the the tragedy of war only after conjuring the `marvellous complexity´ of intellectuals´ lives in early 60s NigeriaThere´s an agonising social exchange towards the end of the first part of Half of a Yellow Sun. Richard, a British man, is talking to a Nigerian poet called Okeoma about his interest in Igbo-Ukwu artefacts.`I´ve been fascinated by the bronzes since I first read about them,` says the eager and enthusiastic white writer. `The details are stunning. It´s quite incredible that these people had perfected the complicated art of lost-wax during the time of the Viking raids. There is such marvellous complexity in the bronzes, just marvellous.`It was the look in Okeoma´s eyes that worried him the most: a disdainful distrust that made him think of reading somewhere that the African and the European would always be irreconcilable. It was wrong of Okeoma to assume that he was one of those Englishmen who did not give the African the benefit of an equal intelligence. Perhaps he had sounded surprised, now that he thought of it, but it was the same surprise he would express if a similar discovery were made in England or anywhere else in the world. Continue reading...