1 of 3
Although oral African literature has been sung and recited for thousands of years, the African novel is a relatively recent phenomenon that emerged in the 20th century with the spread of education and literacy. The classic modern African novel is Chinua Achebe's tragic Things Fall Apart (1958), which, however iconic, can not lay claim to the title of the first African novel. That honor most likely belongs to Sol Plaatje, whose Mhudi: An Epic of South African Native Life a Hundred Years Ago (1930) was the first novel in English published by a black South African. As for West African authors, Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard and His Dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Deads' Town (1952) gained an international readership several years before Achebe's first novel. Both Tutuola and Achebe came from a geographical location that we now call "Nigeria," but when their books were published, Nigeria did not exist as an independent political state.
|
|
The "Big Three" of black African literature, however, are unquestionably Achebe, often acclaimed as "the father of the African novel," fellow Nigerian dramatist and essayist Wole Soyinka, and Kenya's prolific Ngugi Wa'Thiong. With the publication of her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, the prize-winning young novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has advanced her claim to inherit their mantle and, in so doing, is pointing to important new directions for African literature.
While the latest work of the Big Three has turned toward satirical political allegory—see for example Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah (1987), Soyinka's King Baabu (2002), and Ngugi's Wizard of the Crow (2006)—Adichie has opted instead to employ a sprawling Dickensian narrative to depict the all-too-common post-independence African cycle of cynicism, coups, and corruption. Her epic exploration of the themes of authentic identity, love, and sacrifice employs realism rather than the strategies more commonly found in African fiction today: self-conscious metafiction, broad allegory, or magic realism.
Half of a Yellow Sun chronicles the new nation of Nigeria in the Sixties, culminating with the Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-1971), a cataclysmic event that still scars Nigerian memory today much as Vietnam sears the American conscience. Both of Adichie's grandfathers died in the Biafran War, and the book is dedicated, in part, to them. Born in Nigeria, the 29-year-old Adichie now divides her time between there and the United States. Half of a Yellow Sun represents a significant advance from her promising first novel, Purple Hibiscus (2004), which features a typical coming-of-age scenario but delivers that story with lyrical prose and lush metaphors. Adichie's account, in that book, of competing visions of Christianity in contemporary Nigeria is both respectful and insightful.
The far more complex Half of a Yellow Sun moves among three central characters: an uneducated but intelligent village boy named Ugwu; the luminously beautiful and privileged Olanna; and the British expatriate and would-be writer Richard Churchill, drawn to Nigeria by the magnificence of Igbo art. Skillfully employing the third-person limited perspective, Adichie depicts events from the contrasting viewpoints of each of these three characters.
The novel opens in the early Sixties with a superbly assured and engaging narrative voice: "Master was a little crazy; he had spent too many years reading books overseas, talked to himself in his office, did not always return greetings, and had too much hair. Ugwu's aunt said this in a low voice as they walked along the path." Although the reader might initially suspect that "Master" is a British colonial, we soon learn that Ugwu has come to the university town of Nsukka to become the houseboy for Odenigbo, an Igbo mathematics professor and passionate revolutionary. Chapter 2 is centered in the consciousness and vocabulary of Olanna, a well-educated young woman from a wealthy and influential Igbo family, who loves Odenigbo and moves in with him despite her family's disapproval. In Chapter 3 we enter the world of shy, awkward, red-faced Richard Churchill, who falls in love with Olanna's physically and emotionally angular twin sister, Kainene.
RSS Feed
