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- Title
Negotiation of Socio-Ethnic Spaces.
- Authors
NAIR, CHITRA THRIVIKRAMAN
- Abstract
The entire world has come to be envisaged as a 'global village' (Marshall McLuhan) under the impact of globalization, as felt in the social, political, economic, and cultural spheres. Simultaneous with the tides of globalization, with their respective attendant merits and demerits, one observes a resurgence in the spirit of nationalism, especially in countries that were once colonies of the British Empire. Nation and nationalism have always been powerful forces, and it is natural for the colonized to endorse the idea of nation in their rebellious and liberatory acts. Nation and ethnicity have attracted the attention of many postcolonial writers, and the third-generation writers of Africa are no exception. In their writings one can discern the significance accorded to the projection and construction of national and ethnic identities, and how the present is made meaningful through an interrogation and re-creation of the past. This essay examines the Nigerian-born Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun as an articulation of Biafran and Igbo negotiation of a space for themselves in the geo-political landscape in Nigeria after the Nigeria-Biafra civil war. The novel also conveys the paradox underlying the novel's concerns. Adichie, while affirming the need to preserve and maintain ethno-political Igbo identity, seems to argues in favour of hybridity via the white character Richard. Strongly rooted in the Igbo tradition, Half of a Yellow Sun brilliantly captures the lives of the characters caught in the vortex of the ethnic, cultural, and religious tensions unleashed by the war. Adichie explores tribal disputes against the background of Nigeria's national history, and how the characters struggle with the issues of love, class, race, family, and profession against a wartime backdrop.
- Subjects
NIGERIA; HALF of a Yellow Sun (Book); ADICHIE, Chimamanda Ngozi, 1977-; ETHNICITY in literature; AFRICAN fiction; IGBO (African people) in literature; NIGERIAN Civil War, 1967-1970; AFRICAN literature -- History &; criticism; FICTION
- Publication
Matatu: Journal for African Culture & Society, 2014, Vol 45, Issue 1, p203
- ISSN
0932-9714
- Publication type
Literary Criticism
- DOI
10.1163/9789401211093_013