Half of a Yellow Sun - by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Paperback)

About the Book

From the award-winning author of "Purple Hibiscus" comes this masterly, haunting new novel, in which Adichie recreates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria during the 1960s.

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST - From the award-winning, bestselling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists--a haunting story of love and war. - Recipient of the Women's Prize for Fiction "Winner of Winners" award.

With effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor's beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover's charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna's willful twin sister Kainene.

Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war.

Review Quotes

A New York Times Notable Book and a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

"A gorgeous, pitiless account of love, violence and betrayal during the Biafran war." --Time

"Instantly enthralling. . . . Vivid. . . . Powerful . . . A story whose characters live in a changing wartime atmosphere, doing their best to keep that atmosphere at bay." --The New York Times

"Ingenious. . . . [With] searching insight, compassion and an unexpected yet utterly appropriate touch of wit, Adichie has created an extraordinary book." --Los Angeles Times

"Brilliant. . . . Adichie entwines love and politics to a degree rarely achieved by novelists. . . . That is what great fiction does-it simultaneously devours and ennobles, and in its freely acknowledged invention comes to be truer than the facts upon which it is built." --Elle

About the Author

CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE grew up in Nigeria. Her work has been translated into more than fifty-five languages. She is the author of the novels Purple Hibiscus, which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize; Half of a Yellow Sun, which was the recipient of the Women's Prize for Fiction "Best of the Best" award; Americanah, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award; the story collection The Thing Around Your Neck and the essays We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. Her most recent work is an essay about losing her father, Notes on Grief, and Mama's Sleeping Scarf, a children's book written as Nwa Grace-James. A recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.