读《半轮黄日》有感（英文） Book Review: ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’
With 'Half of a Yellow Sun', the author Adichie has painted a haunting monument to the Nigerian Civil War. My imagination was transported to West Africa to experience that ill-fated attempt at nationhood. From the ideological zealots and the troubled sisterhood to the ethical pides of the post-colonial era, this masterpiece perfectly encapsulates life during a civil war.
The story resonated deeply with me. The geopolitics of the revolution sounded all too familiar to someone who grew up hearing similar stories from the generations before me. It reminded me of the Warlord era in China or the Chinese Civil War. My grandfather became an orphan during the famine that followed the 1938 Yellow River flood, which is a tragedy that also occurred during wartime.
I became emotional reading the passage where Igbo refugees fled in panic from soldiers, packing into a running train to get to safety. More specifically, I couldn't help but visualize the image of a mother carrying her child's severed head in a calabash, hoping for a proper burial. I somehow saw my grandfather in that train: numb, exhausted, and facing an uncertain future. He is a taciturn man who rarely speaks of his childhood, as if intentionally omitting the trauma. This book helped me connect with him and imagine what he might have been through.
In the novel, this emotional trauma is anchored by Olanna. It was refreshing to experience the war through a female protagonist's perspective. Throughout the book, she went from being a wealthy, well-educated young elite to a war refugee struggling to feed herself and her child. Amidst this absolute chaos and moral vacuum, war reveals people's true characters. Olanna's resilience, kindness, and her will to hold on to her humanity are truly touching. It also reminds me of the Chinese novel "To Live" by Yu Hua, which tells a similar story of enduring suffering in the Chinese Civil War and Cultural Revolution. These books indeed show many parallels between the Nigerian and Chinese experiences.
It's been fifty years since the end of the Nigerian Civil War and the failed attempt at Biafran nationhood. Looking at the state of the world today, the theme of conflict and displacement seems more relevant than ever. Regardless of where it takes place, the human cost of war remains constant. The tragedy of the Igbo people is the tragedy of my grandpa's generation.
We often first learn a piece of history through numbers: how many thousands of people died. Outsiders often look at the Nigerian Civil War through the lens of the Cold War, the power struggle between the free world and the communists. As a result, this conflict is reduced to ‘dead history’, a geopolitical conflict without real impact beyond its borders. While my grandpa decided to bury his war-related trauma, Adichie incredibly transformed a piece of history defined by cold statistics into a living memory, giving a voice to the silenced. It proves that fiction can articulate the truth better than many history books.
In the end, we look into the lives of others to better understand our own. This book not only illuminated Nigeria's painful history but also allowed me to connect with my heritage, understanding the arduous reality of how the generations before me survived.