A lingering nightmare: Achebe, Ofoegbu and Adichie on Biafra

Ugochukwu, Francoise (2011). A lingering nightmare: Achebe, Ofoegbu and Adichie on Biafra. Matatu - Journal for African Culture and Society, 39 pp. 253–272.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401200745_014

URL: http://www.rodopi.nl/senj.asp?BookId=MATATU+39

Abstract

This essay considers the impact of the 1967-1970 Biafran War on ordinary people's lives, through a comparative study of Achebe's Girls at War (1972), Ofoegbu's Blow the Fire (1985), and Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun (2006). The three books, a collection of short stories by the acclaimed Nigerian writer, the memoirs of a British lady married to a Nigerian recording her experience as a displaced civilian, and the second novel of a young Igbo writer born seven years after the war, provide a rich platform for a multifaceted approach of the war-shattered country from an insider's point of view. The study focuses on the impact of the armed conflict on daily lives and relationships, and reveals the festering wounds left by the war on Igbo conscience as manifested in its literature.

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