The Historical Writing In Adichie’s Half Of A Yellow Sun

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie(1977-)is one of the most prominent female writers in Nigeria today,The Washington Post called her“the descendant of Chinua Achebe in the 21~stt century”.Her second novel Half of a Yellow Sun(2006),which composes an elegy for Nigerian Civil War(also known as the Biafran War)in the 1960s,won the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction in 2007 and helped her gain a high reputation in the world.After Nigeria’s independence in the 1960s,three major ethnic groups,Igbo,Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba scrambled for power and resources,and their conflict gradually heated up,which eventually led to the outbreak of the civil war and caused a lingering disaster to the Nigerians,especially to the Igbos.Half of a Yellow Sun is a novel based on the Nigerian civil war,and the representation of history is the focus of this work.Adichie’s historical writing is different from that of the others,which is reflected in the fact that although the novel presents a realistic style as a whole,the multiple narrative strategies and complex multi-dimensional writing intentions bring readers different experiences from other Nigerian civil war novels.The academic research on Half of a Yellow Sun has focused on the historical theme,postcolonial and violent trauma in the novel so far.Different from other studies focusing on the historical background at that time or emphasizing the violence in war to present the deep disaster brought to the Igbos,this thesis goes deeper into the narrative texture of the novel,which breaks the barrier between the historical discourse and the literary discourse and constructs an organic dialogue between them.In order to explore the motivation,intention and significance of Adichie’s historical writing in Half of a Yellow Sun,this thesis combs the author’s view of history and the purpose of historical writing through the method of close reading.This thesis is composed of five parts:The introduction briefly discusses the development process of Nigerian literature in English,which has been ignored by domestic scholars,and the third generation of Nigerian writers represented by Adichie.In addition,this part also introduces the basic information of Adichie and her work Half of a Yellow Sun,and systematically combs the research results,development and current situation at home and abroad,so as to clarify the research direction and significance of this thesis.Chapter One“‘African Authenticity’:‘Emotional Truth’and Historical Truth”focuses on Adichie’s insistence on emotional truth and her pursuit of historical truth in the historical writing.Adichie mentioned in the postscript that she always adhered to the narrative standpoint of“emotional truth”.Adichie,as an Igbo in Biafra side,was not stigmatized or demonized by the Federal government,the other side of the war,and this unbiased narrative standpoint comes from Adichie’s pursuit of historical truth.Although she tells the reader that the characters and events are fictional,it is based on respect for history.By making the organic fusion of historical truth and literary fiction,the author presents an authentic Africa in postcolonial period.Chapter Two“‘The Danger of a Single Story’:Deconstructing Grand History”discusses a series of writing strategies in Half of a Yellow Sun which deconstruct the grand narrative of war and history,and presents the theme of Nigerian civil war from a detailed perspective.One of the most prominent strategies is the multiple narrative voices adopted by the author,represented by Ugwu,Olanna and Richard,three individuals with different identities who lived in Biafra during the war.Moreover,Adichie avoided making Biafra a utopia and refused to romanticize the war.Through these means of deconstructing the grand history,Adichie broke the stereotype of postcolonial Africa in western hegemonic discourse and wrote a unique and diversified history and Nigeria and Africa.Chapter Three“‘May We Always Remember’:About History,About Human”probes deep into the motive and intention of Adichie’s historical writing.Colonialism is the seed of civil wars which broke out in African countries in the early days of their independence.Rewriting the history of being deliberately suppressed and buried by the victor is not only speaking for the Igbo,but also a reminder of the legacies of colonialism and imperialism for the Nigerian younger generation who did not experience the civil war.Adichie is fundamentally different from other writers who wrote Nigerian civil war literary works.Her sense of responsibility in exploring and constructing postcolonial African history is a kind of universalism that transcends race,class and culture.The essence of this universalism is to resist and deconstruct a so-called nationalism imposed on Africa by the westerners.The conclusion part summarizes the previous section,pointing out that forgetting is not the best choice for this painful history.Through her unremitting efforts,Adichie drives the attention of Nigerian society to the history of Biafran war and opens the first step of reconciliation politics.At the same time,the historical writing of Half of a Yellow Sun once again arouses the world’s attention to postcolonial Africa,which is also the author’s powerful response to the stigmatization and stereotype of Africa.