UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State Reads committee invites students and faculty alike to a screening of the film “Half of a Yellow Sun.” The movie will be shown at 7 p.m. on Oct. 6 in the Freeman Auditorium in the HUB-Robeson Center. A discussion led by faculty members Annemarie Mingo, an assistant professor of African American studies and women’s studies, and Aaron Love, a postdoctoral scholar in African American studies, will follow.
“Half of a Yellow Sun” is based on the novel of the same name by this year’s Penn State Reads author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and premiered in the Toronto International Film Festival in 2013.
The film is a historical drama based in Nigeria during the civil war in the late 1960’s. During the mid-to-late sixties when twin sisters Olanna and Kainene return to Nigeria after their education in England, they make decisions that shock their family. Olanna moves in with her lover, the ‘revolutionary professor’ Odenigbo, and his houseboy Ugwu while Kainene takes over the family interests and pursues a career as a businesswoman, falling in love with Richard, an English writer. As the Igbo people struggle to establish Biafra as an independent republic, the sisters become caught up in the shocking violence of the Nigerian Civil War and a betrayal that threatens their family forever.
The Penn State Reads program is a common reading program that runs complementary to Penn State’s New Student Orientation and supplies each first-year University Park campus student with a copy of the chosen book to provide a shared experience. The program aims to encourage intellectual engagement within and beyond the classroom, stimulate critical thinking and foster a deeper connection to Penn State’s mission and core values.