Intertextuality and influence: Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah (1987) and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun (2006)

Abstract

Abstract This article explores the apparent influence of Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s award-winning second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, with regard to the literary re-historicization of the Nigerian Civil War, the representation of Biafra and the renegotiation of post-independence Nigerian nationalism. It foregrounds several compelling intertextual links – stylistic and ideological – between the two works, and argues that Adichie’s novel echoes, complements and transforms aspects of Achebe’s thematization of post-independence and post-civil war Nigerian nationalism. The article seeks to expand our understanding of the evolution of literary renegotiations of nationhood across the “generations” of Nigerian writing represented by Achebe and Adichie. It also highlights the specific ways in which the works of both writers might be linked.