Contestations, Conflicts and Corollaries of Sociohistorical Conditions in Chimamanda Adichie’s <i>Half of a Yellow Sun</i>

Abstract

The nineteen sixties were a historical era largely characterised by intense sociopolitical contestations and conflicts on the African continent. Although historians, historiographers, political scientists and even sociologists have, over the years, interpreted and analysed these challenging conditions with divergent academic lenses, Chimamanda Adichie’s artistic representations and creative interpretations in <i>Half of a Yellow Sun</i> have thrown up enormous fresh insights. The research, therefore, aims to trace and identify the diverse sociohistorical conditions from which certain sociopolitical contestations and conflicts represented or alluded to in the fiction are derived from, and consequently evaluate them. Applying the critical tenets of New Historicism and qualitative research method, the study unveils that quite a number of the sociopolitical contestations and conflicts represented in the novel still subsist in various forms despite the multiplicity of their dire corollaries, mainly on account of the fact that their precursors have not been decisively dealt with. This implies that efforts directed so far to annihilate the ugly trees of incessant sociopolotical contestations and bloody conflicts on the terrain can be said to have been targeted at the branches and not at the roots. The study maintains that for a level of sustainable peace, stability and development to be attained on the continent, the sociohistorical and political conditions that birth and nourish the contestations and conflicts, with their associated corollaries, should be decisively mitigated.