Locating the African in African Literature

Half of a Yellow Sun is my favourite novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In addition to its intricate plot and beautiful narrative style, it was my first comprehensive encounter with the affairs of Nigeria’s civil war. I use the term ‘comprehensive’ deliberately. My father fought for Biafra during this war, and so playful military drills, war songs, and combat simulations were part of my childhood. I remember quite vividly my father’s shouts of ‘Attention!’ and ‘Atice!’ (At Ease!)’ as my two siblings and I marched into a straight line to be inspected. We desperately fought back fits of giggles as he stiffly marched back and forth, inspecting our ranks and pointing out out-of-place uniforms and imaginary overgrown moustaches.

Sometimes these drills ended or began with personal anecdotes of the war, like how he was sure he had been killed by shrapnel, only to look down and find a dead grasscutter in the spot where he had been squatting. We named this grasscutter ‘Dimpka’ and held a mock funeral for it; it was the least we could do after it had taken the hit that would have killed our father. Or how the bunker he hid in at one time was the only one not shelled by the Nigerian Army that day. These were my first, and for a long time, only stories of the war. Half of a Yellow Sun, however, supplied the whys and hows of the war, something Nigeria had failed to do up to that point. For this reason, I suspect it will always be my favourite Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie novel.

My reasons for liking Americanah, my second favourite of Chimamanda’s novels, are unique—Americanah was the breath of fresh air I did not know I needed. I was introduced to African literature with the primary school classics; Nzekwe’s Eze Goes To School, Osamwonyi’s Ali And Simbi and Onwu-Otuyelu’s Ifeanyi And Obi. Secondary school wove in stories like Ike’s The Bottled Leopard, Achebe’s Chike And The River, Onadipe’s Sugar Girl, Koin’s Time Changes Yesterday and Second Chance, Okoro’s One Week One Trouble, and Iroh’s Without A Silver Spoon. These were relatable stories that I enjoyed and remember fondly but, nine years later, I found myself devouring Americanah with an eagerness that took me by surprise. How did I go from merely enjoying African literature to needing it like ‘fresh air’?

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