Anne Giwa-Amu is a 59-year-old, Nigerian-Welsh writer and civil servant in the United Kingdom. In March 2020, Giwa-Amu published a YouTube video accusing award-winning writer Chimamanda Adichie of copying her novel “Sade”, published in 1996 and rebranding it as the critically acclaimed 2006 novel, “Half of a Yellow Sun”.
The dispute began when Giwa-Amu saw a poster of the film adaptation of Half of A Yellow Sun in London. This aroused suspicions about the similarity between the film’s plot and her novel. For clarity, she purchased Adichie’s novel where suspicions were confirmed. Giwa-Amu went on to release a 54-page document highlighting over 300 similarities between Sade and Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, side by side and page for page. This ranges from similarities as unfounded as the book cover and a character’s affinity for Beethoven to those as meticulous as the twins, the types of wigs characters wear and the identical name and personality of a character.
The Achebe Link
On how Adichie could have had access to her work, Giwa-Amu provided a hypothesized link between Chinua Achebe and Adichie. According to her, she sent her manuscripts for Sade to Heineman Educational Books UK in 1995, where Chinua Achebe worked with the African Writers Series project as an editor. However, the publishing firm revealed that they could not publish her book due to a drop in demand for books under the African Writers Series. This drove her to eventually self-publish her Sade.
Three years later, she sent her manuscript for Sade this time to Heinemann Education Books Nigeria. At this time, Achebe sat on the board of directors and played a role as the “decision-maker” who approved it for publication. Sade was later published by Heinemann Education Books Nigeria in 1999. She cited the role of Achebe as a father-figure and mentor to Adichie, implying that this relationship was exploited in the alleged “stealing” of Sade.
On the 25th of January 2017, Giwa-Amu issued a claim in the Intellectual Property and Enterprise Court in London for copyright infringement. With claim number is IP-2017-000016, the claim was issued against The Wylie Agency UK (literary agents to Chimamanda Adichie, film director Biyi Bandele and the late Chinua Achebe). However, the court struck down the claim and ordered Giwa-Amu to pay Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and her publishers the sum of £14,250 (₦6,310,702), which she has failed to pay.
The Wylie Agency and Adichie’s Defence
The Wylie Agency released a statement describing Giwa-Amu claims as libellous and stating that Adichie and her publishers had never heard of Giwa-Amu’s novel until the claim was presented. They also revealed that the claim was dismissed after the court’s appointment of a professional independent reader who concluded that the claim was baseless. The agency also said that Adichie acknowledged and credited up to 30 books which she consulted while writing Half of A Yellow Sun; and of these 30 books, Sade was not one of them. In May 2020, a group known as Concerned Citizens released a video on YouTube debunking Giwa-Amu’s claims, nullifying the Achebe link stating that Adichie who wrote Half Of A Yellow Sun at 17 met Achebe only after the book was finished and did not get the chance to have a proper conversation in the first few times they met. This was evidenced by an article published by the Premium Times Nigeria in 2012.
Regardless, Giwa-Amu insists that the order to appoint an independent reader was false as it would have been based on the approval of both parties. However, she claimed that she only heard of an independent reader on the Wylie Agency statement and therefore, it could not have been from the court. She also insisted that the court did not forbid her from continuing legal action against the defendants, insinuating that she had plans to further her plagiarism campaign against Adichie.