Remediating Biafra: Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun as a Symbolic Vehicle of Postwar Reconciliation

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Although Chimamanda Adichie has received much critical engagement since the publication of Half of a Yellow Sun and The Thing Around Your Neck, Adichie's attempt to engage Half of a Yellow Sun as a literary platform both for articulating the trauma of Biafran experience and negotiating postwar reconciliation in Nigeria has been largely ignored. Seeking to cover this gap, this paper argues that while the novel attempts to reconstruct love and coherence from the heap of historical disorder by offering a seemingly unbiased diagnosis of the events of the war, it however makes the urgency for dialogue and reconciliation its symbolic gesture. Examining the experiences and reactions of the central characters in the novel, the paper contends that Adichie offers a new perspective that challenges the perpetuation of the ethics of national disintegration. Deploying Edward Said's postcolonial theory of nationalism in articulating the novel's insistence on integration rather than separation, this paper seeks to demonstrate, therefore, how Adichie's artistic projections suggest that postwar dialogue is a necessary step toward engendering viable togetherness in Nigeria.