The novel was already a classic. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, published in 2006, told the story of the Nigerian Civil War through the lives of twin sisters, a houseboy and their lovers. In 2013, the playwright and director Biyi Bandele brought it to the screen with an international cast. Its journey to Nigerian cinemas proved difficult.
The novel and the story
Adichie’s novel won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2007. Its title refers to the half-sun emblem on the Biafran flag. The film follows twin sisters Olanna and Kainene, from a wealthy Igbo family, and their partners: Odenigbo, a radical university lecturer, and Richard, an English writer. Their lives are torn apart by the war that began in 1967.
The cast and filming
Chiwetel Ejiofor played Odenigbo and Thandiwe Newton played Olanna. Anika Noni Rose played Kainene, and Joseph Mawle played Richard. Nigerian actors including Genevieve Nnaji and Onyeka Onwenu also appeared.
Bandele, a Nigerian novelist and playwright based in Britain, wrote the screenplay and directed the film, his feature debut. He later directed Fifty and Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman. He died in 2022. The film was shot in Nigeria, in Calabar and surrounding areas.
Censorship, reception and Biafra
Nigeria’s National Film and Video Censors Board delayed approval for the film’s release in Nigeria in 2014, citing concerns that it might cause unrest. It was eventually approved. Reviews were mixed. Critics praised the performances, especially Ejiofor’s, but some felt the film struggled to compress a long novel. The civil war remains a sensitive subject in Nigeria. The film was part of a wider effort by artists to tell its story.
Adichie supported the adaptation, though she was not the screenwriter. The film introduced the story to audiences who had not read the novel.
Adapting the book and the title
Adichie’s novel moves between the early 1960s and the late 1960s, telling the story from several points of view. The film simplified this structure, which some admirers of the book regretted. The film kept the novel’s title, a reference to the rising sun on the Biafran flag, which symbolised hope for the new republic. The novel of Half of a Yellow Sun was read in classrooms around the world. The film’s struggle to reach Nigerian cinemas showed how raw the history of Biafra still is at home.
