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Introduction
When history is embedded in literature it gives a reader a 

clear picture of the past. The great literary artist who must have 
delved into history before attempting the task ahead must be able 
to paint the life of the plain people, the ordinary men and women, 
of the time which he writes. The writer does not do these things by 
just quoting figures which only gives a picture of the past, it can 
only be done well only if he possesses the highest kind of 
imagination. The creative writer brings the past before our eyes as 
if it were the present. It is his job to make one see the hard-faced 
archers of Agincourt, and the war-sworn spearmen who followed 
Alexander down beyond the rim of the known world.

Therefore these kinds of works can be classified as 
Historical fiction; A made up story that is based on a real time and 
place in history, so fact is mixed with fiction. Ben Okri stated that 
there is “a lot about the past that we can't know except by stories” 
(70). A story is a modest attempt by the writer to make sense of 
experience and the past. It represents an illumination of society's 
reality. It is also in this sense that we can begin to perceive 
literature as a national biography depicting social conditions of 
certain periods in our history. The artist is a conduit through which 
old things or issues (the past) are recovered or reconfigured.

The world that the writer has created is what we want to 
savour and enjoy, but we cannot deeply appreciate it unless we 
comprehend its relevance to the other two worlds, the writer's 
world and our world. Literature becomes a series of historical 
documents because the vital elements of inspiration are 
manipulated in such a manner that gives maximum effect to the 
reader. There is always a delicate and subtle connection between 
literature and history. Literature and history can never be far apart. 
It is in this intricate relationship between literature and life 
(history) that one sees Chimamanda Adichie's Half of a Yellow 

Fact versus Fiction: A Historical Reading of Chimamanda 
Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun

 Dr. Osita Igwenagum Ijeoma Lena
Department of English, Chukwuemeka 

Odumegwu Ojukwu University                     
Igbariam Campus

Ijeomalena@Gmail.com 
& 

 Dr.  Udeh Bryan .J.
Department of English, Chukwuemeka 

Odumegwu Ojukwu University                       
Igbariam Campus

Abstract
Fiction does not develop in a vacuum, the writer may have been 
influenced by historical, sociological events in the past or present. 
The literary artist is therefore a conduit through which old things 
or issues (the past) are recovered or reconfigured. Many critics and 
researchers focus their attention on the effects of the Biafran war 
without paying attention to Adichie's skilful interpretation of a 
war she didn't witness. A great literary artist is a product of books 
he had read in time past. The writer being an epitome of creativity 
does not repeat the same document, he skilfully manipulates, re-
creates, distorts and interprets these historical documents in such a 
way that there is a thin line between fiction and non-fiction. This is 
what distinguishes the creative writer from the historian. This 
paper therefore critically examines Chimamanda Adichie's 
approach to history in Half of a Yellow Sun. It critically examines 
how Adichie re-created and interpreted the historical Biafran war. 
The theoretical framework adopted in this paper is New 
Historicism.
Keywords: History, Conduit, Literature, Creativity, New 
Historicism. 

COOU JOFOCUS: COOU Journal of Folklore and Cultural Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2022 Dr. Olisa Igwenagum Ijeoma Lena  & Dr. Udeh Bryan .J.: Fact Versus Fiction: A Historical Reading
of Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun

mailto:Ijeomalena@Gmail.com


143 144

Bossan, Rita. “Feminist Tendencies in Chimamanda Ngozi 
Adichie's Purple Hibiscus”in Gender and Power in 
Contemporary Africa: Essays in Honour of Prof. Sophia 
Obiajuli Ogwude, Gboyega, K, Egya S. E. and Ifamose, S. 
(Eds.), Bahiti and Dalila Publishers. p. 230. 2014.

Bryce, Jane. 'The Unheard Voices': A Review of Female Novelists 
of Modern Africa by     Oladele Taiwo. 1993.

Dworkin, Andrea Rita. Intercourse.Basic Books, 1987.
--- “I Want a 24-Hour Truce in Which There is No Rape”. 1983. 

h�ps://www.guardian.com.
--- Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics.G.P. 

Putma's Sons, 1976.
Goring, Paul, Jeremy Hawthorn, Domhnall Mitchel. Studying 

L i t e r a t u r e :  T h e  E s s e n t i a l   
Companion.Oxford UP, 2001.

Harrison Kevin and Boyd Tony.“Feminism.”Understanding 
Political Ideas and Movements.Retrieved on 30/10/2022 
from manchesteropenhive.com. 2018. 

Kolawole, Mary E. Modupe. Womanism and African 
Consciousness.Trenton, African World Press, 1998.

Lloyd W. Brown,  Women Wri ters  in  Black Afr ica . 
Westport.Greenwood Press, 1981.

Neshani. Andreas. The Purple Violet of Oshaantu.Heinemann 
Books, 2001.

Nnolim, Charles E. “A House Divided: Feminism in African 
Literature”.Issues in African  L i t e r a t u re .  Tr e a s u r e 
Books, 2009. pp. 134-147

Raina Javeed Ahmad. “Feminism: An Overview”. International 
Journal of Research, vol 4, no 13, 2017, pp.3373.

Stratton, Florence. Contemporary African Literature and the 
Politics of Gender.Routledge, 1994.

Walters Margaret. Feminism: A Very Short Introduction.Oxford 
University Press. 2005.

Conclusion
  This study has been able to show that literatures of Arab 
origin also explore themes of women concerns. The two novels – 
Evelyne Accad's Wounding Words and Neshani Andreas' The 
Purple Violet of Oshaantuare characterised by oppression and 
subjugation.  Most of the female characters live under the 
oppression and suppressionof their husbands. Most of the male 
characters are portrayed as oppressors who deprive the female 
characters of value-defined lives. InThe Purple Violet of 
Oshaantu, Kauna suffers victimhood in the hands of Shange, her 
abusive husband.When Shange eventually dies, Kauna refuses to 
mourn him because she has not recovered from the gory memory 
of her late husband's abusive actions.  Unsuspecting persons who 
do not really know what she has passed through in the hands of her 
late husband see her actions as wicked, vindictive, and 
unreasonable. Hayate in Wounding Wordsassumes the 
responsibility of an activist going about preaching in conjunction 
with other like-minded women the need for women to be free from 
every form of oppression. Abusive patriarchy is portrayed as a 
dangerous societal ill which must be discarded for the freedom of 
women and the society, to the end that thefundamental human 
rights of women must be respected. The authors, therefore, have 
successfully exploited the instrumentality of literature to protest 
against as well as seek amelioration for the difficult circumstances 
women suffer within their societies.

    Works Cited
Accad, Evelyne. Wounding Words: A Woman's Journal in 

Tunisia.Heinemann Books, 1996.
Aidoo, Ama Ata. “Unwelcome Pals and Decorative Slaves: Or 

Glimpses of Women as Writers and Characters in 
Contemporary African Literature”. Literature and 
Society: Selected Essays on African Literature, edited by 
Ernest Emenyonu. Heinemann, 1986. pp. 8-17.

Dele Maxwell Ugwanyi & Ethel Ngozi Okeke & Gabriel Kosiso Okonkwo:  Patriarchy as Infraction 

in Evelyne Accad’s Wounding  Words and Neshani Andreas’ The Purple Violet of Oshaantu
COOU JOFOCUS: COOU Journal of Folklore and Cultural Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2022

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pioneers of Nigerian literature written in English provided an 
explanation for his craft and artistry defending himself as a 
preservationist of his own culture “I don't want the past to die, I 
don't want our culture to vanish. It's not good; we are losing 
customs and traditions but I am still trying to bring them into 
memory” (410). Chinua Achebe has also provided an explanation 
to why he wrote Things Fall Apart. According to him his culture 
was changing rapidly after the Second World War so much so that 
the background material for his story was included in order that his 
people would have a good record of life as it once was, before it 
disappeared and forgotten in his most quoted and celebrated essay 
The novelist as a teacherhe submits: “I would be quite satisfied if 
my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than 
teach my readers that their past with all imperfections was not one 
long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on 
God's behalf delivered them. Perhaps what I write is applied art as 
distinct from pure” (45).

This accords with what Kolawole Mary as “a new way of 
historifying reality in African fiction”(21). To this extent this 
paper critically examines Chimamanda Adichie's skilful 
manipulation, repetition, recreation, and interpretation of History 
in Half of a Yellow Sun.

Fact Versus Fiction: A Historical Interpretation of 
Chimamada Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun is a 
powerful novel that addresses the emotional and personal 
consequences of the Nigerian civil war along with the historical 
atrocities that accompanied it. This is a story about the Nigeria-
Biafra civil war. It is told through the interwining perspectives of 
three characters: Ugwu, a poor village boy who gets a job as a 
house boy for Odenigbo, a university professor, Olanna, a 
privileged woman from Lagos (educated in London) who leaves 

Sun.It is the happening in ones' environment that influences one to 
pick up a pen. No wonder it is said that “literature does not grow or 
develop in a vacuum; it is given impetus, shape, direction and even 
area of concern by social, political and economic forces in a 
particular society. (Homecoming xv).  A lot of events may attract 
the attention of a writer; Even a mere documentation of history 
may inspire a writer. Literature may not be hinged only on 
imagination but history can be recreated and interpreted in 
literature. Factual dates can be interlaced with fictitious 
characters; this will even aid proper understanding of history. For 
E.H Carr in his book first published in 1961 with the title “What is 
History”, he wrote that history consists of a corpus of ascertained 
facts. These facts are available to a historian in documents, 
inscriptions and so on. The historian collects them, takes them 
home, and returns them in whatever style that appeals to him. 
According to Carr, following Collingwood, history is a 
continuous process of interaction between the historian and his or 
her facts in an unending dialogue between the present and the past. 
What this translates to is that the essence of history is to 
understand the society of the past, with a view to increasing the 
mastery of the society of the present. History as Okonta Ike has 
written “may be the study of past events, but it is also very much a 
tool to name and shape the present” (250). The present can be 
understood in its comprehensiveness when serious attention is 
paid to the past.

Writers especially in neo-colonial societies act as 
historians in special ways by distilling from the experiences of the 
past and narrating them in the shape of stories. The history of neo-
colonial society shows that colonialism undermined their 
development. Africans as a result of their experience try as much 
as possible in their narration, to address issues that affect African 
development and how it can be sustained for the benefit of people 
in Africa. Asked why he wrote, Amos Tutola (1997), one of the 

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explore Igbo-ukwu art.

Jumping four years ahead, trouble is brewing between the 
Hausa and the Igbo people and hundreds of people die in the 
massacres, including Olanna's beloved auntie and uncle. A new 
republic called Biafra, is created by the Igbo. As a result of the 
conflict, Olanna, Odenigbo, their daughter baby are forced to flee 
Nsukka, which is the university town and the major intellectual 
hub of the new nation. They finally end up in the refugee town of 
Umuahia, where they suffer as a result of food shortage and 
constant air raids and paranoid atmosphere. These are also 
allusion to a conflict between Olanna and Kainene, Richard and 
Kainene and Olanna and Odenigbo.

When novel moves back to the 1960s, we learn that 
Odenigbo slept with a village girl, who then had his baby. Olanna 
is furious at his betrayal, and sleeps with Richard in a moment of 
liberation. She gets back to Odenigbo and when they later learn 
that Amala refused to keep her new born daughter, Olanna decides 
they would keep her.

Back during the war Olanna, Odenigbo, Baby and Ugwu 
were living with Kainene and Richard where Kainene was running 
a refugee camp. The situation is hopeless as they have no food or 
medicine. Kainene decides to trade across enemy lines, but does 
not return, even after the end of the war a few weeks later. The 
book ends ambiguously, the reader not knowing if Kainene lives.

The first critical element in Adichie's novel is the Use of 
date. This is an element that is critical to a historian's text; this is a 
fundamental fact that gives a back bone of veracity, truth and 
stability to a story. A historian will link precise dates to certain 
events. Biafra became an independent republic on 30 May 1967, 
and one would assume that this date would appear in a novel that 

her lush life behind and moves in with Odenigbo; and Richard, an 
English journalist (in a relationship with Olanna's twin sister, 
Kainene) who receives a grant to write a novel about Nigeria.

Life takes these three main characters into Nsukka, into 
what will become the heart of the Nigerian civil war. Adichie digs 
into the political conflict, caused by the attempted secession of the 
south eastern provinces of Nigeria (populated by the Igbo ethnic 
group) as the self-proclaimed republic of Biafra. The novel uses 
the economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tension among the 
various people of Nigeria and draws out the emotional and 
psychological consequences of the conflict to construct a multi-
dimensional version of this war.

Half of a Yellow Sun swings back and forth before even the pre-
war early 1960s and the conflict stricken southern region in the 
late 1960s. In the earlier stage, the reader can observe the 
intellectual community of Nsukka express their ideas throughout 
a string of dinner parties at Odenigbo's. After Biafra's declaration 
of secession, the lives of the main characters drastically changed 
and were torn apart by the brutality of the civil war and decisions 
in their personal lives.

The book jumps between events that took place during the 
early 1960s and late 1960s, when the war took place, and extends 
until the end of the war. In the early 1960s, the main characters are 
introduced Ugwu, a 13-year old village boy who moves in with 
Odenigbo, to work as his houseboy. Odenigbo frequently 
entertains intellectuals to discuss the political turmoil in Nigeria. 
Life changes for Ugwu when Odenigbo's girlfriend, Olanna, 
moves in with them. Ugwu forms a strong bond with both of them 
and is very loyal. Olanna has a twin sister, Kainene, a woman with 
a dry sense of humour, tired by the pompous company she runs for 
her father. Her lover Richard is an English man who has come to 

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Ikejide came up to him. 'Mr Richard, sah, Madam say 
make you come. There is another coup', Ikejide said. He 
looked excited. Richard hurried indoors. He was right; 
Madu was wrong. The moist July heat had plastered his 
hair limply to his head, and he ran his hand through it as he 
went. Kainene was on a sofa in the living room, her arms 
wrapped around herself, rocking back and forth. The 
British voice on the radio was so loud that she raised her 
voice when she said northern officers have taken over. The 
BBC says they are killing Igbo officers in Kaduna. 
Nigerian radio isn't saying anything (172).

Adichie intentionally avoids using precise dates for important 
event to make the work more fictitious. She doesn't want to be 
called a historian. Below is the declaration of the republic of 
Biafra with no date and also on the radio:

He sat on the bed with the radio placed on the bedside 
cabinet. The reception had little static, as if the radio waves 
understood the importance of the speech. Ojukwu's voice 
was unmistakable; It was vibrantly male, charismatic, 
smooth: Fellow countrymen and women, you the people 
of eastern Nigeria; conscious of the supreme authority of 
the almighty God over all mankind; of your duty over 
posterity; aware that you can no longer be protected in 
your lives and in your property by any Government based 
outside Nigeria… I do hereby solemnly proclaim that the 
territory and region known as and called Eastern Nigeria, 
together with her continental shelf and territorial waters, 
shall henceforth be an independent and sovereign state of 
the name and title of the republic of Biafra  (200).

thThis event took place in history on 30  May 1967; the master 
crafter intentionally omits this date. She went on to deliver the 
information via the radio. The peak was that there was even no 

revolves around Biafra but the master creative writer tactfully 
avoids the use of this. Also most of these important events are 
usually heard on the radio television and from characters thus:

Nkem! Master called out 'Omego! It has happened!' 
Olanna hurried to the living room, Ugwu close behind. 
Master was standing by the radio. The television was on 
but the volume was off so the dancing people they were 
swaying drunkenly. 'There's been a coup; Master said and 
gestured to the radio. 'Major Kaduna Nzeogwu is speaking 
from Kaduna' the voice on the radio was youthful, eager 
and confident: The constitution is suspended and the 
regional government and elected assemblies are hereby 
dissolved, my dear country men. The aim of the political 
council is to establish a nation free from corruption and 
internal strife… (156).

From the above one would gather that there is no date for this 
coup. Adichie creatively recreates history; this can also be seen;

He was serving Baby's porridge when the deputy president 
spoke briefly on the radio the voice understated, as if he 
were exhausted from the effort of saying, “the government 
is  handing over  to  the mil i tary”.  There were 
announcements later – The prime minister was missing, 
Nigeria was now a federal military government, the 
premiers of the North and West were missing but Ugwu 
was not sure who spoke and on what station because master 
sat next to the radio, turning the knob quickly, stopping, 
listening, turning stopping (157).

This tells one how important the radio is for Adichie instead of 
dragging one into these events, she prefers to use the radio; 
thereby creating a thin line between fiction and non-fiction. Again 
information about the second coup which we all know the date 
thus:

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Adichie made it a primary objective; to capture her 
character's reaction to every important event in the novel. It seems 
that the way in which they experience the events is of more 
relevance than the event itself. The event is announced on the 
radio and then the characters react one by one. The novel is indeed 
character driven story in which the emotions and the felt history 
are the focal points. For example after the announcement of the 
coup, the elites in Odenigbo's siting room gave their views:

'This is the end of corruption! This is what we have needed 
to happen since that general strike' one guest said. Ugwu 
did not know his name, but he tended to eat up all the chin-
chin right after it was served… Those majors are true 
heroes! Okeoma said, and raised an arm … 'The BBC is 
calling it an Igbo coup' the chin-chin eating guest said. 
'And they have a point. It was mostly northerners who 
were killed'. It was mostly northerners who were in 
government; Professor Ezeka whispered, his eyebrows 
arched, as if he could not believe he had to say what was so 
obvious. 'The BBC should be asking their people who put 
the northerners to dominate everybody!' Master said 
(158).

From the above discussion the reader grabs the happening in the 
novel, most of it are realistic. This for example is how the 
secession is announced:

But Odenigbo didn't need to deliver the letter because the 
secession was announced that evening he sat on the bed 
with radio placed on the bedside cabinet. The reception 
had little static, as if the radio waves understood the 
importance of the speech, Ojukwu's voice was 
unmistakable; it was vibrantly male, charismatic, smooth: 
fellow countrymen and women, you the people of Eastern 
Nigeria…(200).

thdate for the end of the war, January 14  1970. It was not even 
mentioned. The writer only took note of the season: “the 
harmattan winds where calmer today, they did not make the 
cashew trees swirl, but they blew sand everywhere and the air was 
thick with grit and with rumours his Excellency had not gone in 
search of peace but had run away” (492).  Again from the radio one 
gets that the war has ended:

Odenigbo quickly turned the radio on, as though he has 
been expecting the woman with this news. The male voice 
was unfamiliar: throughout history, injured people have 
had to resolve to alms in self-defence where peaceful 
negotiations fail. We are no exception… I urge General 
Gowon, in the name of humanity, to order his troops to 
pause while an armistice is negotiated (495).

This is how the reader was informed that the war had ended in the 
novel. It is important to note that the only markers of time the 
reader is given in the novel are the two major time periods in which 
the events take place: The early sixties and the late sixties. For 
Nwahunanya this demarcation of time makes sure that “the events 
are not made to occur in vacuo but are located in known historical 
time” (5). The novel starts off in the early sixties; the characters are 
introduced, the scene is set, and their lives intersect. Never is an 
exact date given, arguably because real people do not think or 
remember in terms of precise dates. But the attentive reader can 
deduce some precise date from the historical events that are 
mentioned. Such as “they toasted Kenya's independence” (233), 
Kenya became independent from Britain on 12 December 1963. 
Another instance is the death of Winston Churchill: “Richard was 
also relieved to learn of Sir Winston Churchill's death” (235). 

thChurchill died on 24  January 1965, and again an important 
historical event is coupled with the character's own personal life. 
Richard is not relieved because Churchill has died, but because of 
its consequences: he does not have to face his lover Kainene yet.

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mentioned are real, and are plausible when they are considered in 
the historical context. The places and names mentioned in the 
story are places that were important in the course of events that 
took place during the Nigeria-Biafra war, but in the novel they are 
important because of the presence of the character in them.

Nsukka is a very important city in the novel, Odenigbo lives in the 
university campus and teaches there, Olanna joins him, Richard 
moves to Nsukka too. Hear Olanna tell Chief Okonji her plans to 
go to Nsukka “Nsukka? Is that right? You've decided to move to 
Nsukka? Chief Okonji asked. 'Yes I have applied for a job as 
instructor in the Department of sociology and I just got it', Olanna 
said” (46). Also Kainene tells Olanna of Richard's plan to move to 
Nsukka too: “Richard is going to Nsukka too. He's received the 
grant, and he is going to write his book there” (51). Nsukka was 
significant in the Biafran war because Nsukka was one of the first 
towns overtaken by the federal troops. For Odenigbo and Olanna it 
was only a matter of a week or two and the Biafran soldiers will 
take over but the reverse was the case. “Evacuate now! The 
Federals have entered Nsukka! We are evacuating now! Right 
now!” (219). From Ugwu's narrative point we see people trooping 
out of Nsukka:

Dust swirled all around, like a see-through brown blanket. 
The main road was crowded; women with boxes on their 
heads and babies tied to their backs, barefoot children 
carrying bundles of clothes, yam or boxes, men dragging 
bicycles. Ugwu wondered why they were holding lit 
kerosene lanterns although it was not yet dark (220).

It was also in the university campus at Nsukka that Ojukwu came 
and addressed the students:

They joined the cluster of lecturers standing by the statue 
of the lion…a few reporters scrambled after him, holding 
out tape recorders like offerings. Students, so many that 

This is Ojukwu's speech on the radio, the speech is transcribed; 
and then the reactions follow, each character has his or her own 
distinctly personal reaction to the news:

This is our beginning; Odenigbo said, that false softness 
had left his voice and he sounded normal again, bracing 
and sonorous. He took his glasses off and grabbed Baby's 
little hands and began to dance around in circle with her. 
Olanna laughed and then felt as if she were following a 
script, as if Odenigbo's excitement would abide nothing 
but more excitement. She sat up and shivered. She had 
wanted the secession to happen, but now it seems too big to 
conceive. (201)

Richard and Kainene conceived the secession this way:
The day the secession was announced, he stood with 
Kainene on the varenda and listened to Ojukwu's voice on 
the radio and afterwards took her in his arms. At first he 
thought they were both trembling, until he moved back to 
look at her face and realized that she was perfectly still. 
Only he was trembling. 'Happy independent' he told her 
'Independence' she said before she added 'Happy 
independence'. He wanted to ask her to marry him. This 
was a new start, a new Country. It was not only because 
secession was just, considering all that the Igbo had 
endured, but because of the possibility Biafra held for him 
(208).

Also for Richard “the Nigerians would let Biafrans be; they would 
never fight a people already battered by the massacres. They 
would be pleased to be rid of the Igbo anyway”. Richard was 
certain about this”(208). 

Where the novel resembles a historian's account is in the 
use of place and personal names. Most of the places that are 

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the character's experiences in the real world while maintaining her 
freedom as a literary author to use the surroundings for the 
development of her characters. Abba is another real town 
mentioned in the novel. It is Odenigbo's home town. After the fall 
of Nsukka they all moved to Abba: “When they finally arrived at 
Abba, it was dusk, the wind screen was coated in ochre dust and 
Baby was asleep” (221). The next town was Umuahia and finally 
to Orlu. Port Harcourt was an important city and its fall was very 
significant in the war. The loss of Port Harcourt meant the loss of 
oil and sea ports. It is significant in the story because Richard and 
Kainene lived there. The worst happened to Kainene when Port 
Harcourt fell. There was shelling she had to pack all things to the 
car but when the shelling was getting closer they ran out of the 
house to the orchard but unfortunately for Ikejide he kept running 
instead of taking cover. His head was ripped off his neck and his 
lifeless body was still running: “Ikejide's head was gone. The body 
was running arched slightly forward, arms flying around but there 
was no head. There was only a bodied neck. Kainene screamed. 
The body washed down near her long American car” (386). 
Kainene couldn't bear this gory sight, she cried all night when she 
got to Orlu. Like history always has it that people of the south-
south were saboteurs during the war chimamanda was able to 
reflect this:

Richard said again 'Port Harcourt is safe, isn't it?' There 
was a pause on Madu's end. 'Some saboteurs have been 
arrested and all of them are non-Igbo minorities. I don't 
know why this people insist on aiding the enemy, we will 
overcome. Is Kainene there? Richard handed Kainene the 
phone. The sacrilege of it, that some people could betray 
Biafra. He remembered the Ijaw and the Efik men he saw 
spoken to at a bank in Owerri, who said the Igbo would 
dominate them when Biafra was established (383).

Richard wondered how they had congregated so quickly, 
began to chant 'Power! Power!'... 'I came to ask you a 
question', he said. His oxford accented voice was 
surprisingly soft…'what shall we do? Shall we keep silent 
and let them force us back into Nigeria'…'if they declare 
war; he said 'I want to tell you now it may become a long 
drawn out war. Are you prepared? Are we prepared?' 'Yes! 
Yes! Ojukwu, onye anyi egbe! Give Us Guns! Iwe di anyi 
n'obi! There is anger in our hearts!' (211).

Street names are also mentioned in the novel. The street Odenigbo 
and Olanna lived in is called Odim Street which is a street that 
exists near the university in Nsukka. In this way it would have 
been possible for this couple to have lived there. “They went past a 
sign, Odim Street, and Ugwu mouthed street, as he did whenever 
he saw an English word that was not too long” (13).

 Adichie invented fictive places, some of the places 
mentioned were not real. F+or example she invented a train station 
in Nsukka, invented a beach in Port Harcourt, changed the 
distance between towns but Adichie never invented the major 
events. This train station is seen in pages 179 and 180:

“Some of our people are coming back now. The lucky ones 
are coming back. The railway stations are full of our 
people. If you have tea and bread to spare, please take it to 
the stations. Help a brother in need'. Master leapt up the 
sofa. 'Go Ugwu', he said 'take tea and bread and go to the 
railway station ” (180).

Adichie explains how she handled the geography of Nigeria in her 
novel: “I invented a train station in Nsukka, invented a beach in 
Port Harcourt changed the distance between towns… but I did not 
invent any of the major events”. Adichie treats the geographic 
reality differently than a historian would; this enables her to frame 

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159 160

Ugwu heard the sound just before they cut their cake in the 
living room, the swift wah-wah-wah roar in the sky. At first 
it was thunderous and then it receded for a moment and 
came back again louder and swifter. From somewhere 
close by, chickens began to squawk wildly. Somebody 
said, 'enemy plane! Air raid' 'outside!' master shouted, but 
some guests were running into the bedroom, screaming, 
'Jesus! Jesus!' The sound were louder now, overheard, they 
ran …they spurted hundreds of scattered bullets before 
dark balls rolled out from underneath, as if the planes were 
laying large eggs. The first explosion was so loud that 
Ugwu's ear popped and his body shivered alongside the 
vibrating ground. A woman from the opposite house 
tugged at Olanna's dress. 'Remove it! Remove that white 
dress! They will see it and target us!' (248).

Just as she seemed to let the emotional response to the 
announcement of the secession take preference over the event 
itself, here the running of the wedding is more important to the 
characters than the occurrence of the bombing. These two events 
will always be remembered together by them, just because the 
bombing occurred at a moment of pivotal importance in their 
lives. By combining the personal and the political or historical in 
this way, Adichie makes the political developments of the 
characters felt personal history.

Conclusion
Conclusively, one must recognize that Half of a Yellow Sun 

is a historical novel. As Chinyere Nwahunanya points out “The 
historical novel combines the technique of the historian 
(documentation) and that of the novelist (imaginative recreation 
of events) in the fictional evocation of the past” (2). In the novel 
there is careful attention to fiction writing as an art. This can be 
recognised in the way in which the plot is built up, the way in 

Other real places that were mentioned include Lagos, Orlu, 
Owerri etc. The names of important historical figures are 
maintained in the narrative, Gown and Ojukwu are frequently 
mentioned, Churchill, Tafawa Belewa, Harold Wilson, who was 
the British prime minister at the time. Ojukwu and Gowon's voice 
are always heard on the radio, except when Ojukwu came to the 
university campus:

'I came to ask you a question,' he said. His Oxford-
accented voice was surprisingly soft; it did not have the 
timbre that it did over the radio and it was a little theatrical, 
a little too measured. 'What shall we do?'  Shall we keep 
silence and let them force us back into Nigeria? Shall we 
ignore the thousands of our brothers and sisters killed in 
the North? (211).

According to White, the historian and the fiction writer come 
together when the historian must transform his study into a written 
form. The historian has to “employ the same strategies of 
linguistic figuration used by imaginative writers to endow. Their 
discourse with the kind of latent, secondary, or connotative 
meanings that will require their works not only received as 
message but read as symbolic structures” (8). This is an idea which 
he derives from Roland Barthes. This latent meaning is “It's 
interpretation of the event that makes up its manifest content” (8). 
This interpretation is what separates the historical discourse from 
a list of chronological ordered events, and what approximates it to 
a narrative fiction. This also refers to what White calls 
'emplotment' the events are integrated into a plot structure. This 
relates back to the way in which the personal events punctuate and 
parallel the political ones in the novel. Adichie uses the personal to 
make the political felt. Olanna and Odenigbo's wedding, for 
example is also the moment of the first bombing of the town of 
Umuahia:

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of Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun



161

which the dialogue is constructed, and how each character is 
drawn with careful attention to each detail. Adichie documents the 
Nigerian Biafran war, but the story revolves around how this 
particular time in history was experienced by the characters. 
Adichie uses the different characters to demonstrate that there are 
as many versions of reality as there are people to interpret it; she 
uses her novel to show these different dimensions of one and the 
same period in time. FurtheAdichie combines history and 
literature to keep the past in the present, to keep it alive, and also to 
make the historical and political history felt.

 Works Cited 
Achebe, Chinua. Morning Yet on Creation Day. HEB, 1975.
Adichie, Chimamanda. Half of a Yellow Sun. Farafina, 2006.
Alaba-Isama, Godwin.The Tragedy of Victory: On the Spot 

Account of the Nigerian-Biafra War in the Atlantic Theatre. 
Spectrum Books, 2013.

Amuta, Chidi. “The Nigerian Civil War and the Evolution of 
Nigerian Literature”.Canadian Journal of African Studies, 
vol 17, no 1, 1983, pp. 85-89.

Brady, Patrick. Memory and History as Fiction: An Archetypal 
Approach to the Historical Novel. New Paradigm Press, 
1983.

Carr, Edward. What is History? Penguin, 1981.
Collingwood, Christopher. The idea of History.Oxford 

University Press, 1946.
De groot, Jerome. The Historical Novel.Routldge, 2010.
Emenyonu, Ernest. War in African Literature Today.HEBN, 

2008.
Okigbo, Christopher. Labyrinths.Heinemann, 1971.
Orie, Chibueze Prince. The Curio in Phenomenality and 

Competence.Samdrew, 2011.

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