FAB News: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton Set For Screen Version of Ngozi Adichie’s “Half Of A Yellow Sun” – By Jumoke Ilori

Beautiful actress, Thandie Newton has signed up to star in the up and coming Nigerian-set screen version of author Ngozi Adichie’s novel, Half Of A Yellow Sun.

Newton will be acting alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor and Dominic Cooper, in the films description of Adichie’s novel, based around the Nigerian-Biafran War in 1967-70’s, concentrating on its effects on the lives of a highly positioned political figure, a professor, a British citizen and a houseboy.

Sources have also said “UK producers Andrea Calderwood (The Last King of Scotland) and Gail Egan (The Constant Gardener) have recently secured crucial private equity backing from Nigeria in order to move the anticipated project forward. The BFI has also supported the film.”

If you haven’t already read the book then ‘tut tut’ to you.  With amazing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie  knits together the lives of three characters brushed up in the turmoil of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is hired as a houseboy for a university professor full of ground-breaking zeal. Olanna is the professor’s stunning mistress, who has abandoned her life of joy in Lagos for a filthy university, and the charm of her new lover. Richard is a shy and young Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s twin sister, a mysterious figure who rejects to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops spread and they must run for their lives, their principles are severely tested, as are their trustworthiness to one another.

Classic, determined, and successfully understood, Half Of A Yellow Sun is a notable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic commitments, class, race and the ways in which love can confuse them all.

Filming is set to begin in March, can’t wait!

Chiwetel Ejiofor

Dominic Cooper

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie