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Half of a Yellow Sun or the Quest for (and Repression of) New Boundaries in Post-Colonial Nigeria: An International Law Analysis

  • Toyin Dodo-Williams is senior partner at Paradigmarks Legal. He is a Trademark Attorney and heads the European Union trademark department. With expert experience in marketing strategies and operations, he coordinates the Business, Innovation, Investments and Market team at Paradigmarks Legal Partners Network.

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    Enrico Milano (LLM, Nottigham; Ph.D. LSE) is Professor of International Law at the University of Verona. He has published extensively on issues of territoriality and dispute settlement in international law. He is the author of Unlawful Territorial Situations in International Law (Brille, 2006) and The Formation of States and Processes of State-Building in International Law: Kosovo 1999–2013 (in Italian, Editoriale Scientifica, 2013).

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Published/Copyright: September 5, 2018
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Pólemos
From the journal Pólemos Volume 12 Issue 2

Abstract

Half of a Yellow Sun is a novel written by the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The title of the book takes its reference from the flag of the former, short-lived, Republic of Biafra, which consisted of a horizontal tricolour of red, black, and green, with a golden rising sun over a golden bar. The author unfolds to the reader the impact and the ugliness of the Biafran war of independence as it meanders through the lives of the interdependent main characters: Ugwu, Olanna, Kainene, Odenigbo and Richard. The events that climaxed into the civil war gradually tore apart the day-to-day routine serenity of the main characters, requiring continuous adjustment in the lives of each character to the reality of war. The harrowing experience of the war drastically changed their lives. The present contribution draws inspiration from thes novel to engage with the construction and definition of social, political and legal boundaries in post-colonial Nigeria, focussing in particular on the relevance and impact of international law norms and principles in the events that unfolded between 1967 and 1970.

Keywords: Half of a Yellow Sun; Biafra; post-colonial Nigeria; secession; international law

About the authors

Toyin Dodo-Williams

Toyin Dodo-Williams is senior partner at Paradigmarks Legal. He is a Trademark Attorney and heads the European Union trademark department. With expert experience in marketing strategies and operations, he coordinates the Business, Innovation, Investments and Market team at Paradigmarks Legal Partners Network.

Enrico Milano

Enrico Milano (LLM, Nottigham; Ph.D. LSE) is Professor of International Law at the University of Verona. He has published extensively on issues of territoriality and dispute settlement in international law. He is the author of Unlawful Territorial Situations in International Law (Brille, 2006) and The Formation of States and Processes of State-Building in International Law: Kosovo 1999–2013 (in Italian, Editoriale Scientifica, 2013).

Published Online: 2018-09-05
Published in Print: 2018-09-25

© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Focus
  3. Law and Borders: Territory, Space and Time between Diversity and Protection
  4. The Law and the Line: The Literary Mirroring of a Paradigm
  5. Half of a Yellow Sun or the Quest for (and Repression of) New Boundaries in Post-Colonial Nigeria: An International Law Analysis
  6. Freedom’s Frontiers: The Travails of LGBT Travelers
  7. Queering the Border: Walter Pater’s “Sebastian Van Storck” and the Apocalypse of the Self
  8. Donʼt Ask Us for Lex. Body Exhibition and Forms of Exclusion
  9. Research
  10. A Revenger’s Tragedy
  11. Translation, Copyright & Authority
  12. Semantics of Chaos: Modernity, Law and the Commons
  13. Tubal, Shylock, and the Myth of Venice
  14. Law Meets Literature: Raphael Lemkin and Genocide Studies
  15. Literature, Art and the Democracy to Come: A Legal Approach to The Danish Girl
  16. Book Reviews
  17. Dale Barleben: Staging the Trials of Modernism. Testimony and the British Modern Literary Consciousness
  18. Lucky Belder Helle Porsdam: Negotiating Cultural Rights. Issues at Stake, Challenges and Recommendations
https://doi.org/10.1515/pol-2018-0016
Keywords for this article
Half of a Yellow Sun; Biafra; post-colonial Nigeria; secession; international law

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Focus
  3. Law and Borders: Territory, Space and Time between Diversity and Protection
  4. The Law and the Line: The Literary Mirroring of a Paradigm
  5. Half of a Yellow Sun or the Quest for (and Repression of) New Boundaries in Post-Colonial Nigeria: An International Law Analysis
  6. Freedom’s Frontiers: The Travails of LGBT Travelers
  7. Queering the Border: Walter Pater’s “Sebastian Van Storck” and the Apocalypse of the Self
  8. Donʼt Ask Us for Lex. Body Exhibition and Forms of Exclusion
  9. Research
  10. A Revenger’s Tragedy
  11. Translation, Copyright & Authority
  12. Semantics of Chaos: Modernity, Law and the Commons
  13. Tubal, Shylock, and the Myth of Venice
  14. Law Meets Literature: Raphael Lemkin and Genocide Studies
  15. Literature, Art and the Democracy to Come: A Legal Approach to The Danish Girl
  16. Book Reviews
  17. Dale Barleben: Staging the Trials of Modernism. Testimony and the British Modern Literary Consciousness
  18. Lucky Belder Helle Porsdam: Negotiating Cultural Rights. Issues at Stake, Challenges and Recommendations
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