‘The Other Half of the Sun’

Abstract

When Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun (2006b), was featured on the British television show, Richard and Judy, in 2007, co-host Richard Madeley offered the following enthusiastic, but not altogether inspired thought about the book: ‘It’s a sort of Nigerian version of Gone with the Wind.’ The presenter’s observation was the first in a series of comments visibly meant to underline the ‘universal’ appeal of the African author’s novel about the Biafran War: ‘Within three pages’, Madeley continued, ‘I felt as if I was reading about something that happened here in Britain — the parallels between all of our lives are just so identical’ (Richard and Judy, 2007). After several references to major world conflicts (all supposedly reminiscent of the civil war between Nigeria and Biafra at the heart of Half of a Yellow Sun), the comparison with Gone with the Wind was reiterated thrice more in the course of the 13-minute televised sequence. The analogy, rather infelicitous in view of its contrived universalist underpinnings and its unwitting branding of Adichie’s novel as a melodrama, even verged on the comical for those recalling the dubious racial politics of Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel and its 1939 film adaptation. As is commonly known, the sweeping tale of Scarlett O’Hara, whether on the page or on the screen, has often been accused of endorsing the institution of slavery in the Deep South at the time of the American Civil War.