Producing Exile: Diasporic Vision in Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun
Set in postcolonial Nigeria during the Biafra War, Adichie's second novel represents the fracturing of national unity and the suffering of the Igbo people as the doomed war propels them into diaspora. The essay explores the novel's diasporic vision, tracing Adichie's representation of the colonial legacies that shape public history and undermine personal communities. Rejecting historical omniscience and narrating instead through three uncertain characters, Adichie demonstrates the diasporic vision produced by events in the novel. The estranged observers demonstrate anticolonial modes of perception and the potential for a diasporic consciousness attuned to the innate failures of nationalism.