DOCSLIB.ORG

The Intersection of History, Literature and Trauma in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’S Half of a Yellow Sun

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Intersection of History, Literature and Trauma in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’S Half of a Yellow Sun FACULTEIT LETTEREN EN WIJSBEGEERTE Vakgroep Literatuur/ Engels The Intersection of History, Literature and Trauma in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun Joke De Mey Academiejaar 2010 - 2011 Masterproef voorgedragen tot het behalen van graad van Master in de Taal- en Letterkunde: Twee Talen: Engels- Spaans Promotor: Dr. Sarah Posman I would like to express my thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Sarah Posman, for the useful advice and many patient readings. I would also like to thank my parents, friends and boyfriend for their support during the past four years. 2 Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 4 1.1 The Author ....................................................................................................................... 4 1.2 Historical Situation ........................................................................................................... 4 1.3 Literary Context: Adichie as an African Author .............................................................. 6 1.4 The Act of Narrating: Literature, History and Trauma .................................................... 9 2. Literature and History: Interlinked Discourses .................................................................... 11 2.1 Twentieth-century Debate on History ............................................................................ 13 2.2 History as Narrative ....................................................................................................... 14 2.3 Reasons for Writing History .......................................................................................... 18 3. The Ownership and Authorship of History in Half of a Yellow Sun .................................... 25 3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 25 3.2 The Ownership of History .............................................................................................. 25 3.3 The Writing of History ................................................................................................... 27 3.3.1 The Book ................................................................................................................. 27 3.3.2 The Author .............................................................................................................. 29 4. Half of a Yellow Sun and Postcolonial Trauma .................................................................... 34 4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 34 4.2 Adichie‟s Trauma ........................................................................................................... 35 4.2.1 Postmemory ............................................................................................................. 35 4.2.2 Testimony ................................................................................................................ 38 4.3 Half of a Yellow Sun and Trauma ................................................................................... 39 4.3.1 African Context ....................................................................................................... 39 4.3.2 Formal Elements ..................................................................................................... 42 4.3.3 Thematic Elements .................................................................................................. 46 5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 54 6. Bibliography ......................................................................................................................... 57 3 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 The Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is an author who is mainly concerned with the ongoing effects of colonization in Africa, and more importantly Nigeria. Adichie was born in 1977 in Enugu, Nigeria. She grew up in the university town Nsukka, where both of her parents worked at the university. She started the study of medicine but dropped out after a year and a half to pursue her writing career. Adichie‟s first novel Purple Hibiscus was published in 2003; the book has received wide critical acclaim. Her second novel Half of a Yellow Sun was released in 2006, and is set before and during the Nigeria-Biafra War. In 2009 Adichie published a volume of short stories named The Thing around Your Neck. Now Adichie divides her time between Nigeria, where she teaches, and the United States. 1.2 Historical Situation Half of a Yellow Sun, Adichie‟s second novel, was published in 2006. It is set in Nigeria, and deals with two periods, the early 60s and the late 60s, which are of pivotal importance in the postcolonial history of Nigeria. In the late 60s, the country was involved in a bloody and violent conflict, the Nigeria-Biafra War, which lasted from 1967 to 1970. Adichie shifts between these two time periods in the novel. In the parts on the early 60s, the events leading up to the violent conflict are sketched, and the main characters are introduced. Since the novel deals with real historic events, it is useful to investigate the way in which the author chooses to portray them. There are many different ways in which historical events can be approached, and depending on where the emphasis is put, a very different picture may be the outcome. To be able to fully understand the historical context of the events described in the novel and referred to in this dissertation, it is crucial to touch on the origins of the conflict and explain how the tensions escalated into a full-fledged war. To this end, I have drawn on two works: Falola Toyin‟s Colonialism and Violence in Nigeria (2009) and Aleksandar Pavović‟s Creating New States, Theory and Practice of Secession (2007). Toyin is a Nigerian scholar who focuses on African history; Pavović‟s work sheds light on the mechanisms of secession, and on the violence they often entail. The territory of Nigeria came under the colonial influence of Britain in the late 19th century and became a British colony in 1914. However, within the territory of what the British called „a country‟, they united three entirely different 4 ethnic groups. The three predominant ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Igbo in the southeast, the Hausa-Fulani in the north and the Yoruba in the southwest. Nigeria attained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1960. Its three ethnic groups formed three major internal units, and each had very different cultural customs and political structures. Due to reasons as less fertile soil, the overpopulated eastern coast, and the search for work, the Igbo and other Easterners migrated to the northern parts of Nigeria. In January 1966 a group of Igbo majors attempted a coup, and Yoruba and Hausa political leaders were killed. The Igbo General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi became President. This coup was perceived as an Igbo conspiracy. It led to riots and a first wave of massacres in which hundreds of Igbos were killed. In July 1966, there occurred a counter-coup by the North, and Ironsi was killed. Lieutenant Colonel Yakubu Gowon came to power with the support of the United Kingdom and the United States. However, the military governor of the Eastern Region, Lieutenant Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, refused to recognize Gowon as anything else than a temporary head of state. Further ethnic tensions led to more massacres by Northern soldiers of Christian Igbos in the North which brought about a large scale exodus of the Igbo and other Easterners out of the northern part of Nigeria. Peace accords, like the one at Aburi in Ghana failed, and on 30 May 1967 Ojukwu proclaimed the secession of the southeast of Nigeria as the republic of Biafra. Its flag shows half of a rising sun and was the inspiration for the title of Adichie‟s novel. The Nigerian government did not recognize this new republic, however, and the Nigeria-Biafra War began in July. Even though the Biafran troops were outnumbered, and had a shortage of weapons, they managed to achieve some wins in the beginning of the war. However, with the support of the United Kingdom and the USSR, the federal troops encircled the area, and blocked all of Biafra‟s links to the outside world. This led to a great shortage of means and food; it is estimated that up to three million people died in Biafra, mostly from starvation. Ojukwu fled, and Biafra surrendered to the federal troops on January 13 1970. The violence between the different ethnic groups, however, continued after this. Even though the ethnic tensions are still a part of the Nigerian reality today, their intensity has lessened somewhat over the last decades. 5 1.3 Literary Context: Adichie as an African Author During her childhood in Nigeria Adichie read a lot of British novels; she mentions the writer Enid Blyton, a British children‟s writer, frequently in interviews. When Adichie started to write her own stories, these all revolved around white middle-class characters. It was only when she started to read novels by African writers, such as Chinua Achebe‟s novel Things Fall Apart (1958), around the age of eight that she realized that black Africans and the history of her own country was a possible topic of novels. She herself says: „I like to think of Achebe as the writer whose work gave me permission to write my own stories.‟
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Journal of Arts & Humanities
    Journal of Arts & Humanities Volume 09, Issue 06, 2020: 75-85 Article Received: 27-05-2020 Accepted: 30-06-2020 Available Online: 08-06-2020 ISSN: 2167-9045 (Print), 2167-9053 (Online) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18533/journal.v9i6.1934 Coming of Age through War: Exploring Bildung in Adichie’s half of a Yellow Sun Cecilia Addei (PhD)1, Cynthia Elizabeth Osei (PhD)2, Theresah Addai-Mununkum (PhD)3 ABSTRACT This paper explores Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun as a novel of formation with respect to its portrayal of Ugwu, one of the main focalisers of the novel. The novel follows the representation of Ugwu as he develops from a young house boy till he matures to become the chronicler of his people’s war time experience. A core proposition of the paper is that even though Ugwu fights with the Biafran army as a child soldier, his war-time experience does not destroy him like we see in other West African child-soldier novels. Rather, he learns important lessons from the war which makes him mature to become the writer of Biafran war history. This makes the novel conform to the Bildungsroman genre unlike most child soldier novels whose protagonists develop abnormally making those novels anti-Bildungsromane. Keywords: Half of a Yellow Sun, Bildungsroman, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Child soldier, Biafra War. This is an open access article under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. 1. Introduction Half of a Yellow Sun is the second novel of the renowned Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
    [Show full text]
  • Contemporary Nigerian Fiction and the Return to the Recent Past
    BEARING WITNESS TO AN ERA: CONTEMPORARY NIGERIAN FICTION AND THE RETURN TO THE RECENT PAST Juliet Tenshak Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD in English Studies School of Arts and Humanities, University of Stirling. December 2017. Acknowledgements The Ph.D journey has been long, very challenging but rewarding. On this journey, I got fresh and startling insights to the meaning of the word „Help‟. I made it to this point because of the help I have received from so many people in various ways, and at different times. I am humbled. My first expression of gratitude goes to my supervisor Professor David Murphy, whose support, PATIENCE, and encouragement is in large part the reason I made it this far. I would also like to thank my second supervisor Dr. Gemma Robinson who has been unfailingly supportive and encouraging. I am also grateful to the school administrator Alison Scott for the support I received from her in the course of my study. I owe a debt of gratitude to the British Federation of Women Graduates, who provided much-needed financial support for the final year of my Ph.D. To my husband Fidel Odhiambo Wayara, you are my exceedingly great reward. Thank you for loving and pushing. To my girls; Walsham, Naannaa and Kiyenret, thank you for putting up with my absence. Thank you for making motherhood a thing of joy and fulfillment for me, and thank you for the sacrifices you individually and collectively made for me to do this. I love you girls more than the whole world and back! To my mother Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • 'Producing Exile: Diasporic Vision in Adichie's Half of a Yellow'
    650 Diasporic Vision in Adichie producing exile: diasporic vision in adichie's f half of a yellow sun Susan Strehle "For surely it is one of the unhappiest characteristics of the age to have produced more refugees, migrants, displaced persons, and exiles than ever before in history . ." —Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism Diaspora involves both burdens and gifts. Those who suffer exile have experienced the catastrophic loss of homeland; displaced by traumatic violence from homes they will not recover, they may never experience a sense of belonging to a home again. At the same time, émigrés arrive in a space liberated from nationalism, with its damaging assumptions of homogeneity and unity, and their new, defamiliarized place makes possible a transgressive and resistant politics and sociality. The diasporic subject inhabits two locations and takes on internal divisions and doublings. Invoking W. E. B. Du Bois, R. Radhakrishnan identifies in diasporic subjects a version of double-consciousness, brought from past to present location: "If the diasporic self is forever marked by a double consciousness, then its entry as legitimate citizen into the adopted homeland is also neces- sarily double" (Diasporic 174). V. Y. Mudimbe and Sabine Engel agree that "Members of diasporas define themselves in terms of at least a double identity" rather than the "unconditional fidelity" of national citizens (4), and can therefore "think, live, and work as international MFS Modern Fiction Studies, Volume 57, number 4, Winter 2011. Copyright © for the Purdue Research Foundation by the Johns Hopkins University Press. All rights to reproduction in any form reserved. Strehle 651 citizens, or citizens of a globalized world" (5).1 In a divided and con- tradictory relation to place, these subjects may mourn the loss of rootedness; simultaneously, from an "uprooted" position, they may criticize both previous and present places.2 Producing this doubled diasporic vision, the experience of diaspora involves loss and gain, painful displacement and liberatory relocation.
    [Show full text]
  • Translation, Transculturation and Diasporic Images In
    Prague Journal of English Studies MD ABU SHAHID ABDULLAH Volume 6, No. 1, 2017 ISSN: 1804-8722 (print) South African Novel.” 2011. Web. http://othes.univie.ac.at/14477/1/2011- '2,10.1515/pjes-2017-0006 ISSN: 2336-2685 (online) 05-10_0506703.pdf. Tal, Kali. Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma. Cambridge: New Transatlantic African Writing: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Print. Translation, Transculturation and Diasporic van der Kolk, Bessel A. and Rita Fisler. “Dissociation and the Fragmentary Nature of Traumatic Memories: Overview and Exploratory Study.” Journal Images in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The 1 of Traumatic Stress. 8.4 (1995): 505-525. Print. Thing Around Your Neck and Americanah Vickroy, Laurie. Trauma and Survival in Contemporary Fiction. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2002. Print. Whitehead, Anne. Trauma Fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, Elena Rodríguez Murphy 2004. Print. Described as one of the leading voices of her generation, Nigerian writer Chimamanda MD ABU SHAHID ABDULLAH is a Ph.D. Fellow at Otto-Friedrich Ngozi Adichie has become one of the many African authors who through their narratives University Bamberg, Germany. He completed his M.A. in the European have succeeded in challenging the literary canon both in Europe and North America Joint Master’s Degree in English and American Studies programme from the while redefi ning African literature from the diaspora. Her specifi c use of the English same university in 2014, including one exchange semester at the University of language as well as transcultural writing strategies allow Adichie to skilfully represent Graz (Karl-Franzens University) in Austria.
    [Show full text]
  • Curriculum Vitae 2019 2001 Ph.D., English, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI Ph.D. Certificate, African Studies Ph.D. Minor
    HEATHER HEWETT Curriculum Vitae 2019 EDUCATION 2001 Ph.D., English, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI Ph.D. Certificate, African Studies Ph.D. Minor, Cultural Studies (Anthropology, Journalism and Mass Communication, African American Studies, History of Photography) Dissertation: “Diaspora’s Daughters: Buchi Emecheta, Julie Dash, Edwidge Danticat and the Remapping of Mother Africa.” 1995 M.A., English, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 1991 B.A., English, Yale University, New Haven, CT Magna cum laude, with distinction in the major PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS 2017-present Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Affiliate, Department of English, SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY. 2012-2016 Associate Professor of English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY. 2005-2011 Assistant Professor of English and Women’s Studies, SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY. 2004-2005 Adjunct Lecturer, Department of English, Pace University, NY, NY; and Instructor, Barnard Center for Research on Women, NY, NY. 1998-1999 Visiting Lecturer, Université Gaston Berger de Saint-Louis, Saint-Louis, Senegal. ADMINISTRATIVE POSITIONS 2005-2011 Coordinator, Women’s Studies Program, SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY. 2 PUBLICATIONS Refereed Journal Articles “Unlearning Introductions: Problematizing Pedagogies of Inclusion, Diversity, and Experience in the Women’s and Gender Studies Intro Course.” With Meg Devlin O’Sullivan and Karl Bryant. Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice / Études critiques sur le genre, la culture, et la justice sociale vol. 37, no. 2, 2016, 22-33. “Mothering Across Borders: Narratives of Immigrant Mothers in the U.S.” WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly vol.
    [Show full text]
  • The Question of “Solidarity” in Postcolonial Trauma Fiction: Beyond the Recognition Principle
    Humanities 2015, 4, 369–392; doi:10.3390/h4030369 OPEN ACCESS humanities ISSN 2076-0787 www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities Article The Question of “Solidarity” in Postcolonial Trauma Fiction: Beyond the Recognition Principle Hamish Dalley Department of English, Daemen College, 4380 Main Street, Amherst, NY 14226, USA; E-Mail: [email protected]; Tel.: +1-716-839-8416 Academic Editor: Sonya Andermahr Received: 28 June 2015 / Accepted: 28 August 2015 / Published: 7 September 2015 Abstract: Dominant theorizations of cultural trauma often appeal to the twinned notions of “recognition” and “solidarity”, suggesting that by inviting readers to recognize distant suffering, trauma narratives enable forms of cross-cultural solidarity to emerge. This paper explores and critiques that argument with reference to postcolonial literature. It surveys four areas of postcolonial trauma, examining works that narrate traumatic experiences of the colonized, colonizers, perpetrators and proletarians. It explores how novelists locate traumatic affects in the body, and suggests that Frantz Fanon’s model of racial trauma in Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth remains essential for the interpretation of postcolonial texts, including those to which it is not usually applied. The analysis further reveals tensions between different texts’ appeals for recognition, and suggests that these tensions problematize the claim that solidarity will emerge from sympathetic engagement with trauma victims. As such, the paper makes three key arguments: first, that trauma offers a productive ground for comparing postcolonial fiction; second, that comparison uncovers problems for theorists attempting to “decolonize” trauma studies; and third, that trauma theory needs to be supplemented with systemic material analyses of particular contexts if it is not to obfuscate what makes postcolonial traumas distinct.
    [Show full text]
  • Challenging Colonial Education in Adichie's Half
    PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI CHALLENGING COLONIAL EDUCATION IN ADICHIE’S HALF OF A YELLOW SUN A Thesis Presented As Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement to Obtain the Magister Humaniora (M.Hum.) in English Language Studies by Febby Winda Pelupessy Student Number: 156332016 THE GRADUATE PROGRAM OF ENGLISH LANGUANGE STUDIES SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2017 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI APPROVAL A THESIS CHALLENGING COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AI}ICHIE'S HALF OF A YELLOW SUN &h*1, -r<= Patrisius Mutiara Andalas, S.J., S.S., S.T.D. Ft, Thesis Arlvisor Yogyakarta, Novemb er l, 20L7 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI THESIS DEFENSE APPROVAI. PAGE CHALLENGING COLONLAL EDUCATION IN ADICHIE'S IIALF OF A TELLOW SLTN By Febby Winda Pelupessy' Student N'umber. i 563320 I 6 Defended before the Thesis Committee and Seclaretl Acceptable 't' IESIS {:0esM HTTIlE. qtal-^* ehairpers*n : Ifra. F.i*vita. Ilervi. M.S.. M.A tHons.), Ilh.t-r. Secretary : Faulus S;tnvotri" Ph.D. Meinbers . I. Dr. {:i. Fa"j*r Sasr:tita Aji" M.}"lum. 2. Fatrisius Muiiara Andahrs. SJ.. 5.1'.D. Yogyakarta, November 16, 2017 e Graduate Progrann Director arma Universi Budi Subanar, SJ. ii PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI STATEMENTOF'ORIGINALITY } This is to certifiz that all ideas, phrases, sentences, unless otherwise stated, are the ideas and sentences of the thesis writer. The writer understands the full consequences including degree cancellation if she took somebody else,s ideas, phrases, or sentences without proper references. Yogyakarta,
    [Show full text]
  • Twins: a Compelling Narrative Device in Two Igbo Novels
    Manion 1 Caitlin Manion Eng 341 Dr. Andrews 17 March 2010 Twins: A Compelling Narrative Device in Two Igbo Novels In West African Igbo culture, twins were historically considered evil, the wicked pair sent to their unfortunate mother as a curse. In most parts of Igboland, twins would be carried to the community’s “evil forest” in clay pots and left to die. Considering Southern Nigeria’s remarkably high twin birth rate, at twice the global average, twin killing was not a rare occurrence (Akinboro 41). The practice has since been abolished, but presents the important backdrop for the use of both literal and figurative twins in Igbo literature. In Chinua Achebe’s first and best-known novel Things Fall Apart, twin killing is presented as the most tangible contrast between Christian and Igbo beliefs, between tradition and modernity. In the novel, twin killing is a featured practice given substantial weight, and is discussed by several central characters. Achebe, arguably Nigeria’s most famous author, had considerable influence on later Nigerian writers, and since Achebe’s time, twins have become an important theme and touchstone for Igbo literature. In later novels by Igbo writers, twins and doubles are frequently encountered, reflecting the local phenomenon of twins, harking back to ancient Igbo superstitions, and serving as Igbo-specific literary foils. Two novels in particular are emphatic in their use of twins, achieving both literary elegance and anthropological authenticity. Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, and Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun each employ twins and doubles as their prominent literary device.
    [Show full text]
  • Women in the Shadow of Biafran War in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's
    Journal of Xi’an Shiyou University, Natural Science Edition ISSN : 1673-064X The Models of Emancipation: Women in the shadow of Biafran War in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun A.Amala Nithya Roselin* *Ph.D. Research Scholar (Reg.No. 19211284012031), Research Department of English, St.Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Palayamkottai – 627002, Affiliated to Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Abishekapatti - 627012, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, India Dr.S.Veeralakshmi ** **Assistant Professor, Research Department of English, St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Palayamkottai – 627002, Affiliated to Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Abishekapatti - 627012, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, India Abstract- This paper reads Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, exploring the partaking of women in the Biafran War. It returns to the specific period and highlight the metamorphosis of women, irrespective of the gender layout. The paper blends the historical underpinning, taboo and the stance of women, altogether and presents a comprehensive study on Half of a Yellow Sun. Adichie, in this novel, has attempted to display a feministic perspective, subsuming the ardent participation of women in war. Deconstruction of biased framework by woman characters in the novel is overlooked by the current study. Index Terms- Biafran war, gender, women, history I.INTRODUCTION Without the women, the Nigerian vandals would have overrun Biafra: without the women, our gallant Biafran soldiers would have died of hunger in the war fronts. Without the women, the Biafran Red Cross would have collapsed (Nwapa, 13) Crucial situation opens the way and grant opportunities for underprivileged. Since the story is set in the background of the Biafra War or Nigerian Civil War, life of the characters in the story hardly remains stable, as they are continuously exposed to the horrors of war in the later part of the novel irrespective of gender, power and wealth, people struggles to save themselves and their family from the horrors of war.
    [Show full text]
  • Okigbo Conference, a Quarterly, Semi-Annual Or Annual Christopher Okigbo Newsletter, and Support for the Website of the Christopher Okigbo Foundation
    Poetry (Online) #57 ISSN 1479-425X THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF POETRY & GRAPHICS CHRISTOPHER OKIGBO INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE An International Multidisciplinary Celebration of Okigbo’s Legacy Theme: Postcolonial African Literature and the Ideals of the Open Society/Teaching and Learning from Christopher Okigbo’s Poetry September 19-23, 2007 PROGRAM Co-hosted by Harvard University; Boston University; University of Massachusetts, Boston; and Wellesley College in association with Christopher Okigbo Foundation, Brussels, Belgium Convener: Chukwuma Azuonye ([email protected]/ [email protected]) INTRODUCTION THE ROBBERS are back in black hidden steps of detonators— FOR BEYOND the blaze of sirened afternoons, beyond the motorcades; Beyond the voices and days, the echoing highways; beyond the latescence Of our dissonant airs; through the curtained eyeballs, Onto our forgotten selves, onto our broken images; beyond the barricades Commandments and edicts, beyond the iron tables, beyond the elephant’s Legendary patience, beyond the inviolable bronze bust; beyond our crumbling towers — BEYOND the iron path careering along the same beaten track — THE GLIMPSE of a dream lies smoldering in a cave, together with the mortally wounded birds. —Christopher Okigbo, “Elegy for Alto” (Path of Thunder) IT is perhaps not too much to say that Christopher Nixton Ifekandu Okigbo (1930-67) was by far the greatest postcolonial, modernist, African poet of the twentieth-century. Born on August 16, 1930 to a prominent Igbo Roman Catholic family in Ojooto, in present day Anambra State of Nigeria, and educated at the Government College Umuahia and later at the University College Ibadan where he majored in Greek and Latin Classics, he began writing poetry seriously in the late 1950’s after a period of intense exercises in translating poetry from Latin to English and vice versa.
    [Show full text]
  • History, Memory and the Politics of National Unity in Adichie's Half of A
    International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature (IJSELL) Volume 2, Issue 5, May 2014, PP 81-89 ISSN 2347-3126 (Print) & ISSN 2347-3134 (Online) www.arcjournals.org History, Memory and the Politics of National Unity in Adichie’s half of a Yellow Sun and Achebe’s There was a Country Bernard Dickson C. Department of English, University of Uyo, [email protected] Kinggeorge Okoro Preye Beyelsa State College of Arts and Science, Yenagoa Abstract: One of the greatest challenges to national unity in Nigeria is the multi-ethnic composition of the country which was not given due consideration by the British colonial administration during the amalgamation in 1914. The result of this insensitivity by the British administration has been ethnic rivalry and mutual distrust among the different ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. These traits became evident in the first decade following Nigeria’s flag independence in 1960 and crystalised during the Nigeria-Biafra war. Some Nigerians, especially the Igbo are still smarting from the effects of the war and successive governments’ attempt to repress the memory of the war tends to increase the pain rather than heal the wound as many of the victims believe that the issues that led to the war have not been adequately addressed. This essay examines how the history and memory of the war and the lessons therefrom as portrayed in Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun and Achebe’s There Was a Country can facilitate collective exorcism and engender national unity. 1. INTRODUCTION Few events in Nigeria‟s history have rivalled in intensity and propensity the series of events beginning with the botched military coup of January 15, 1966 and culminating in the fratricidal civil war of May 1967-January 1970.
    [Show full text]
  • Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow
    Asian Journal of Humanity, Art and Literature, Volume 1, No 3 (2014) Representation of History in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) Morve Roshan K. Ph.D. Research Scholar, Center for Comparative Literature and Translation Studies, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Central University of Gujarat, India ABSTRACT Volume 1, Number 3/2014 This study deals with the conflict of Nigerian Biafran War 6 July, 1960-15 January, 1967 as represented in DOI prefix: 10.15590/ajhal Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie‟s novel Half of a Yellow Sun (2006). The study attempts to address the following four questions: first, what are the causes-effects of Licensed: Biafran/Civil war? Second, why Nigerians have been suffering during the wartime? Third, how does the representation of Nigerian history enable understanding Source of Support: Nil Conflict of Interest: None Declared of the post-colonial issues? And final, what is the role of conflict in Nigerian history? In order to understand this conflict, the study addresses the detailed analysis of war Email for correspondence: [email protected] conflict, ethnic conflict, class conflict, military conflict and eco-political conflict. The post-colonial approach becomes one of the ways of engaging the theoretical understan ding of the novel Half of a Yellow Sun. In sum up, the novel is located with the issues of marginality, history and conflict, which interrogates through post-colonial theoretical formations and the six-phase structure of war novels. Key Words: Nigeria; post-colonial; Biafran war; history; representation INTRODUCTION The „postcolonial‟ in postcolonial writing thus amplifies the nature of its wider cultural work, how it interrogates the past and present operation of historical forces and dominant ways of reading them that underscore local, national and international identities (Mullaney 7).
    [Show full text]