The danger of a single story

Every now and then, I can be found cruising the TED website for some random inspiration. Their tagline “Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world” is spot on and really does feature some pretty remarkable people and their equally remarkable points of view and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is certainly no exception.

I was somewhat familiar with her novel, Half of a Yellow Sun which caused a stir of excitement when it came out a few years ago. I recall seeing so many Nigerians proudly displaying their copies and talking about how great it was. Despite the fact that I consider myself an avid reader, (I consume at least 4 books a month and bits and pieces of many more) I refused to read Half of A Yellow Sun simply because “I don’t read fiction”. However, after gleaning some information from Chimamanda’s website in preparation for this post, I realized that in my ignorance I had fallen into the very trap Chimamanda warned of by assuming a single story of fiction!

So what is this book really about?  The quote below from her website says it way better than I ever can.

“Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race—and the ways in which love can complicate them all.”

Needless to say, my copy should be here as soon as Amazon can get it to me and who knows, there might be a book review on here someday!