Linny and Nancy open a lovely thank you present from author Laura Rudicille (episode ##). Linny declares the beautiful stained glass will brighten her life since she’s been deeply immersed in the Nigerian Civil War – this month’s book. This month we’re reading HALF OF A YELLOW SUN by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Listeners might remember Episode 88. Our guest to discuss Chinua Achebe’s THINGS FALL ABOUT was Dr. Thomas Jay Lynn. During that episode, he mentioned one of his favorite books about Africa was HALF OF A YELLOW SUN. We made a note of that, and here we are! Chinua Achebe’s THINGS FALL apart was one of Linny’s favorite books we’ve read. So, she was interested to read this book that takes place 80 years later. Nigeria is breaking apart and the Igbo people in southeastern Nigeria declare themselves a separate country called Biafra. This novel is set in the late 1960s immediate before and during the Biafran war and we meet a lot of characters, but for Nancy it is really the story about the private lives of 20-something twin sisters, Olanna and Kainene and the choice they make turning this turbulent time. They come from an affluent and wealthy family and they’ve been educated in England. Olanna is the “beauty” and she is a people pleaser, and lacks confidence. Kainene is not beautiful and is blunt and is successfully assuming leadership of her father’s businesses. Neither Linny nor Nancy knew much about Biafra before reading this book. Linny said she knows there has always been lots of political unrest in Africa. Nancy talks about why she thinks that is a result of colonialization. In an interview Nancy read, Chimamanda said she did years of research to write this book. She immersed herself in archives, the music of the area, and much more because she wanted to capture the emotion and feel of the time. Maybe most interesting, she interviewed her parents and other family members on their firsthand experiences during the war. Both her grandfathers died in refugee camps during the war. Her parents, academics, lost everything. Her brother was born during the war. She also did years of research and said that almost every single incident in the novel is based on something that actually happened. So, pretty devastating when you think about the atrocities we read about having actually happened. Linny and Nancy discuss the tragedy of civilians in war zones. Nancy thought it was interesting that Chimamanda decided to make them twins who have become distanced from one another. They had once been close, but now are not. So, that made her think of Nigeria as a country. Here are people who have been formed into a nation, but the cracks are starting to show. They are distancing themselves from one another, just as Olanna and Kainene have distanced themselves and are on the verge of a conflict. Linny liked the sisters, enough. She didn’t find that she cared about the characters passionately. She’s not sure why. No one is perfect in this book, just as no one is in real life. Nancy wonders if that was part of it for Linny. Linny didn’t have a favorite sister. She was very disappointed in Olanna having sex with Kainene’s boyfriend. That breaks the Girl Code. Linny thought she did that to stab her sister. Nancy thought Olanna did so because she was reeling over Odenigbo’s affair with his mother’s housegirl (and the subsequent pregnancy) and her need for reassurance that she was still desirable. Richard was an easy mark, because he was so clearly dazzled by her. Nancy thinks she didn’t even consider her sister, which may be even worse. Linny insists Olanna must have thought of her sister. Linny says Richard is no prize and it isn’t even clear why Kainene is with him. He is a failed writer. He has never felt he belonged. He did seem to truly love Kainene and perhaps him being white is a bit of a status symbol for Kainene. The war has a huge impact on the arc of all the characters. Olanna, because Odenigbo disintegrates, must step up and help her family survive and also becomes stronger and more confident. Kainene is confident and competent and becomes more so, eventually operating a refugee camp, becoming more a humanitarian. Linny said the men in the book reminded her of the men in THE COLOR PURPLE. Nancy agrees they were all disappointments. Even Olanna and Kainene’s father has an affair. Linny wants to know why Olanna and Odenigbo continue to call the baby, Baby, even when the books ends and she is 7 or 8. Nancy thinks it’s because they got stuck as a couple when Baby comes to live with them. The book opens with 13 year old Ugwu leaving his somewhat backward village to become a houseboy for Odenigbo who is a university lecturer. He’s never seen a refrigerator and is awed by the books in his “master’s” library. Ugwu soon learns how to keep house and cook for Odenigbo and stays with him through Olanna’s appearance in his life, the appearance of Odenigbo’s baby by his mother’s housegirl, and through the upheaval of the war and the diminishment of their circumstances. Eventually, Ugwu is forcibly conscripted into fighting. Ugwu was another big disappointment to Linny. Linny thinks the low point of the story is when Ugwu participates in a gang rape. Nancy agrees and thinks Ugwu’s journey from innocence to moral disintegration is a commentary on war. What does war do to people? We kill each other and perpetrate other inhumanities. Ugwu has to face his evil when he discovers his beloved sister has also been gang raped and sees its impact on her. Linny says after this low point and the end of the war, then the characters have to figure out how to pick up the pieces of who they are and try to move on. They then have to start anew. Nancy likes how we learn at the end of the book that Ugwu was the author of the history of the Biafran War of which excerpts are sprinkled throughout the book. Next episode, we will welcome Taiwoo Bello to the front porch to talk more about HALF OF A YELLOW SUN. Taiwoo is an Assistant Professor of African History, and is an affiliate faculty member of the Africana Studies Centre at Oklahoma State University. His research and teaching interests encompass gender and women's history, war and society, violence and conflict studies, the history of crime, law, and punishment, Black and diaspora studies, genocide, human rights, and humanitarian histories, as well as global and transnational history. He has a forthcoming book entitled, Soldiers on Rampage: Gender, Blockade, Violence and Resistance in Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970. The book examines the impact of the wartime violence between the Nigerian and Biafran soldiers on Biafran women and their families, and the women's responses to wartime atrocities.