Contextual Information: Half of a Yellow Sun 3

12 Questions for Chimamanda Adichie

by jane ciabattari | Apr-27-2011

In honor of the fifth anniversary of the founding of Critical Mass in April 2006, we're posting some of the most popular entries from our archives. This interview with Chimamanda Adichie was first published on September 12, 2006. She was working on her novel Half of a Yellow Sun, which went on to become an NBCC fiction finalist. Most recently Adichie appeared in an NBCC reading at the AWP in Washington, D.C., in February 2011. She read from new work, in a comic vein.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's first novel, Purple Hibiscus, narrated by a 15-year-old whose strict Catholic father beats his wife and children in private, was widely praised, and short-listed for the 2004 Orange prize, ranking Adichie, then 25, along with authors Margaret Atwood, Shirley Hazzard, Andrea Levy and Rose Tremain. Purple Hibiscus was long-listed for the Booker prize and won the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Adichie, who divides her time between Nigeria and the U.S., spent last year as a Hodder fellow at Princeton and now is in graduate school in African history at Yale. In her just published second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, she draws upon her ancestral past to write about a civil war in the 1960s that traumatized her family and her country.

Q. Tell me about the meaning of your name.
A. Chimamanda means "My god will not fall down" or "My god will not fail me. "Most Igbo names have incredible meanings. It's a lovely language. Musical. Incredible names. Life affirming names.
Q. Where were you born and raised?
A.I was born in Enuga, Nigeria. I grew up in the house previously occupied by Chinua Achebe. When I was seven we moved into what had been Achebe's house in Nsukka, where the University of Nigeria is. It's a lovely coincidence.
Q. After the publication of Purple Hibiscus, one critic called you "Chinua Achebe's twenty-first-century daughter."
A. He is a remarkable man. The writer and the man. He's what I think writers should be. He is a human being.
Q. What were your parents like?
A. My mother is vivacious. We tease her that she could become a politician. She walks into the market and people call out to her. She is the first female registrar at the University of Nigeria. My dad is very reserved, a mathematician. He went to UC Berkeley for his Ph.D. He is quick to point out that Berkeley had the best statistics department at the time. I love and like him, as well.
Q. Where did you attend university? Graduate school? What influenced your choices?
A. After a year and a half at the University of Nigeria, I decided I didn't want to study medicine. Because I did well in school, I was expected to become a doctor. But I wanted to be a writer. I realized I couldn't do that in my country, I would have to come to the U.S. My parents let me do it. They realized I was the kind of person who knew what I wanted. I came to the U.S. to study at Drexel University for two years. I had a scholarship.
Q. I understand you wrote Purple Hibiscus while a senior at Eastern Connecticut State University. What brought you to Connecticut?
A. My oldest sister Igeoma had a young son and she was starting a medical practice. I could pay for college by babysitting for him and live rent free. So I became his mother of sorts. I didn't have a life. I didn't hang out. I could come home and write at night. I would get him ready for school, go to school, then I'd be home when he got back, and cook supper. Then I would sit down and write. Before that I wrote a really bad novel. I was writing what I thought was hip. It wasn't true. Then I wrote Purple Hibiscus. It was organic. The first burst of writing went well. It was what gave me joy. Reworking was harder. It's what happens being from a nonliterary family. My sister is very practical. Her husband is a doctor, too. They didn't understand my need for solitude. When they would go off for the weekend, I looked forward to being at home alone.
Q. Tell me what it was like to work on a novel about the Nigerian civil war in the 1960s, when Biafra wanted to secede.
A. The Biafran was a very painful war, and writing this book has been painful. I don't think I ever will do anything like this again. It's as though I am picking through shreds of pain. I would often start to cry. What Biafra is, for the Igbo, it's people who are wounded, and somebody poured salt in the wound. On the other hand, I'm pleased about the prospect that this novel might get Nigerians talking about Biafra. A lot of the issues are not resolved. And I'm prepared to have people say that this young writer has no business writing about Biafra.
Q. You were born after the war. What sort of research did you do to capture the feeling of the buildup of tension, the massacres of Igbo, the arming of an independent Biafran army, the war scenes, the refugee camps, the starvation?
A. Working on the book, I surrounded myself with more research than I could use, including photos of children. It's unbelievable what starvation can do. I would think, they could be my cousins. My father has helped with research, answering questions I had. I'm using my father's memories.
Q. How was your father affected by the war?
A. My grandfather died in a refugee camp, during the war. But my father couldn't really say good-bye. The roads were too dangerous. My father is a very reserved man. He told me how finally he was able to get there, and somebody pointed at where his father had been buried. It was unmarked. He took a handful of dust, and brought it home. It broke my heart. He admired his father.
Q. How did you decide upon the narrative points of view for this book?
A. I have three major characters, two are men (one an English man) and the third is a woman. Biafra can't be told without the men. The men were in control. I have a rape scene that is very powerful, and very detailed. This is what happened to many women. It's a story I have heard over and over. It's a means of control to gang rape this girl in the midst of war. I think it's important to tell the stories of what women went through. I also like writing from the point of view of a white man. I am exercising my imagination, with a 75-year-old Englishman as my model.
Q. It seems you and your father are close.
A. When I was much younger I thought my father never slept. I thought he was invincible. Now he is older, he's diabetic and 74, and the average age for men in my country is 56. Every time the phone rings I'm afraid it's something. I'm fascinated by death and constantly thinking about death. For me, love and death come together.
Q. Do you think this connection of love with death has anything to do with the war?
A. What I know about the war was from listening to my father. I know the pain he went through. He would never say, "I was in deep pain." He will say he took a handful of dust from his father's grave. In the end, Half of a Yellow Sun is a novel about love.

Author Biography: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Birth—September 15, 1977
• Where—Enugu, Enugu State, Nigeria
• Education—B.A., Eastern Connecticut State University; M.A.,
(creative writing) Johns Hopkins University; M.A. (African
Studies), Yale University
• Awards—Orange Prize; Best First Book Award from the
Commonwealth Writers' Prize; O.Henry Prize
• Currently—divides her time between the US and Nigeri
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer. She is Igbo, one of the largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria. Adichie has been called "the most prominent" of a "procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors" that have succeeded "in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature."
Education: Born in the town of Enugu, she grew up in the university town of Nsukka in southeastern Nigeria, where the University of Nigeria is situated. While she was growing up, her father was a professor of statistics at the university, and her mother was the university registrar.
Adichie studied medicine and pharmacy at the University of Nigeria for a year and a half. During this period, she edited The Compass, a magazine run by the university's Catholic medical students. At the age of 19, Adichie left Nigeria and moved to the United States for college. After studying communications and political science at Drexel University in Philadelphia, she transferred to Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU) to live closer to her sister, who had a medical practice in Coventry. She received a bachelor's degree from ECSU, where she graduated summa cum laude in 2001.
In 2003, she completed a master's degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University. In 2008, she received a Master of Arts in African studies from Yale University.
Adichie was a Hodder fellow at Princeton University during the 2005-2006 academic year. In 2008 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She has also been awarded a 2011-2012 fellowship by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.
Adichie, who is married, divides her time between Nigeria, where she teaches writing workshops, and the United States.
Writing career
Writing: In 1997 Adichie published Decisions, a collection of poems, and in 1998, a play For Love of Biafra. She was shortlisted in 2002 for the Caine Prize[ for her short story "You in America."
In 2003, her story "That Harmattan Morning" was selected as joint winner of the BBC Short Story Awards, and she won the O. Henry prize for "The American Embassy." She also won the David T. Wong International Short Story Prize 2002/2003 (PEN Center Award), for "Half of a Yellow Sun."
Her first novel, Purple Hibiscus (2003), received wide critical acclaim; it was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction (2004) and was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (2005). Her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, named after the flag of the short-lived nation of Biafra, is set before and during the Biafran War. It was awarded the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction.
Her third book, The Thing Around Your Neck (2009), is a collection of short stories. In 2010 she was listed among the authors of The New Yorker′s "20 Under 40" Fiction Issue. Adichie's story "Ceiling" was included in the 2011 edition of The Best American Short Stories. Her third novel Americanah was published in 2013.

HELPFUL WEBSITES

www.igboguide.orghttp://www.igboguide.org/

http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Mauritania-to-Nigeria/Igbo.html

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Igbo.aspx

The Igbo people, historically spelled Ibo, "Heebo" or "Eboe" are an ethnic group of southeastern Nigeria. They speak Igbo, which includes various Igboid languages and dialects. Igbo people are one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa. In rural Nigeria, Igbo people are mostly craftsmen, farmers and traders. The most important crop is the yam; celebrations are held annually to celebrate its harvesting. Other staple crops include cassava and taro.

Before British colonialism, the Igbo were a politically fragmented group. There were variations in culture such as in art styles, attire and religious practices. Various subgroups were organized by clan, lineage, village affiliation, and dialect. There were not many centralized chiefdoms, hereditary aristocracy, or kingship customs except in kingdoms such as those of the Nri, Arochukwu, Agborand Onitsha. This political system changed significantly under British colonialism in the early 20th century; Eze (kings) were introduced into most local communities by Frederick Lugard as "Warrant Chiefs". The Igbo became overwhelmingly Christian under colonization. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is one of the most popular novels to depict Igbo culture and changes under colonialism.

By the mid-20th century, the Igbo people developed a strong sense of ethnic identity. Certain conflicts with other Nigerian ethnicities led to Igbo-dominated Eastern Nigeria seceding to create the independent state of Biafra. The Nigerian Civil War or the Nigerian-Biafran War" (6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970) broke out shortly after. With their defeat, the Republic of Biafra once again was part of Nigeria. MASSOB, a sectarian organization formed in 1999, continues a non-violent struggle for an independent Igbo state.

Due to the effects of migration and the Atlantic slave trade, there are descendant ethnic Igbo populations in countries such as Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, as well as outside Africa. Their exact population outside Africa is unknown, but today many African Americans and Afro Caribbeans are of Igbo descent. According to Liberian historians the fifth president of Liberia Edward James Roye was of Igbo descent.

Biafra, Republic of

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. | 2014 |

Republic of Biafra, secessionist state of W Africa, in existence from May 30, 1967, to Jan. 15, 1970. At the outset Biafra comprised, roughly, the East-Central, South-Eastern, and Rivers states of the Federation of Nigeria, where the Igbo people predominated. The country, which took its name from the Bight of Biafra (an arm of the Atlantic Ocean), was established by Igbos who felt they could not develop—or even survive—within Nigeria. In Sept., 1966, numerous Igbos had been killed in N Nigeria, where they had migrated in order to engage in commerce. The secessionist state was led by Lt. Col. Chukuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu and included some non-Igbos. Biafra's original capital was Enugu; Aba, Umuahia, and Owerri served successively as provisional capitals after Enugu was captured (Oct., 1967) by Nigerian forces. Seeking to maintain national unity, Nigeria imposed economic sanctions on Biafra from the start of the secession, and fighting between Nigeria and Biafra broke out in July, 1967. After initial Biafran advances, Nigeria attacked Biafra by air, land, and sea and gradually reduced the territory under its control. The breakaway state had insufficient resources at the start of the war—it was a net importer of food and had little industry—and depended heavily on its control of petroleum fields for funds to make purchases abroad. It lost the oil fields in the war, and more than one million of its civilian population are thought to have died as a result of severe malnutrition. At the time of its surrender on Jan. 15, 1970, Biafra was greatly reduced in size, its inhabitants were starving, and its leader, Ojukwu, had fled the country. During its existence Biafra was recognized by only five nations, although other countries gave moral or material support.