READ ALSO: Half of A Yellow Sun Summary: Chapters 17 – 37
Table of Contents
READ ALSO: Later Experiences with Corned Beef & More
Half of a Yellow Sun Summary: Chapter 11
Olanna was with Mohammed in Kano, when they receive news of the attacks on Igbos.
Sule, Mohammed’s gateman, informs them that dead bodies are strewn along the road.
Mohammed rushes to get Olanna on a train but she insists to first pass by her Uncle’s house in Sabon Gari.
There she finds that her aunt and uncle have been slaughtered by, among others, Abdulmalik, her uncle’s friend.
Olanna is keen to go check on Arize but when men with metal blades arrive in the compound, the pair have no choice but to drive off and get Olanna to the train station as quickly as possible.
On the train, Olanna sits next to a woman carrying a little girl’s head in a calabash (presumably it is her daughter’s head that has been severed).
Eventually the train crosses the Niger River and reaches safe terrain.
Summary Half of a Yellow Sun: Chapter 12
In Chapter 12 of Half a Yellow Sun, Richard arrives back in Nigeria from London. He stops in Kano to change flights to Lagos.
While at the airport, three soldiers burst into the airport and kill a young Igbo customs officer-in-training that Richard had been speaking to only a short while prior.
They also kill the bartender at the airport and pull out Igbo passengers that had already boarded an airplane and execute them on the tarmac.
Richard manages to leave Kano and arrives in Lagos.
Before all this happens, at the beginning of the chapter, Richard reads a love note from Kainene and decides to propose to her. He is sure she will say yes.
Half of the Yellow Sun Summary: Chapter 13
In Chapter 13 of Half a Yellow Sun, Olanna returns home to Nsukka after witnessing horrors in Kano and on her journey back.
She is traumatized and her legs fail, so she is unable to walk.
She begins to have mental health issues, which Adichie refers to as Dark Swoops.
Her parents and, most notably, Kainene come to visit her.
Eventually Olanna begins to walk again.
In this Chapter, Eastern Nigeria secedes under the leadership of Colonel Ojukwu to become The Republic of Biafra (named after the Bight of Biafra bay).
The Biafrans are elated and commemorate this with rallies to celebrate this new beginning.
Half a Yellow Sun Summary: Chapter 14
The Biafrans continue to be elated about their new independance, Richard included, but they also seem to be aware of the possibility of impending war.
In Nsukka, Richard bumps into Olanna at a seminar entitled “In Case of War” and she asks about Kainene.
Richard is flabbergasted at how the international press covers the occurrences in Nigeria, and he submits a piece clarifying some misconceptions including the British involvement in the ethic animosity between northern Nigeria and the Igbo.
Colonel Ojukwu makes a surprise visit to the campus in Nsukka and everyone is excited about it.
Those present call for war asking him to give them guns to avenge their dead.
Chapter 15
At the beginning of Chapter 15, the reader gets a sense of the food shortages taking place in Biafra.
Unlike when the refugees from the north first began to arrive, people are no longer donating food as they used too.
Odenigbo refuses to believe this, thinking that the donations are being misappropriated.
Tensions are high in Nsukka and there is talk of looming war. People begin to leave Nsukka, but Odenigbo and Olanna’s household stays put.
Ugwu’s aunt comes to inform him that his sister Anulika is soon to be married and that her wine-carrying ceremony date has been set.
Before this happens, the Nigerian army invades the Nsukka campus and Olanna, Odenigbo, Baby and Ugwu are forced to flee.
They flee to Abba, Odenigbo’s home town.
Chapter 16
The Nigerian federal government has declared a “police action to bring the rebels to order”.
Kainene recommends that Richard gets his things from Nsukka (as well as Harrison) and brings them to Port Harcourt.
On his way to Nsukka he encounters a road block where he is instructed to return from whence he came because Nsukka is not safe.
He tells the men at the roadblock that he works at the university in Nsukka and wants to get his things and his houseboy.
When they suspect him of being an agent of the Nigerian government, he quickly counters in Igbo that he is Biafran and that he learned Igbo from his wife.
He returns to Port Harcourt.
In Port Harcourt, Richard and Kainene discuss the civil war. He is very much in support of the cause while she sees the war as an exercise in extortion by the military.
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