Half of a Yellow Sun

Set against the brutal backdrop of the Nigerian Civil War, Adichie’s epic entwines three characters in a web of faded colonialism, racial antagonism and vexed romance. In 1960s Nigeria, three lives intersect. Ugwu, a boy from a poor village, works as a houseboy for a university professor. Olanna has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos to live with her charismatic lover, the professor. And Richard, a shy Englishman, is in thrall to Olanna's enigmatic twin sister. As the horrific Nigerian Civil War engulfs them, they are thrown together and pulled apart in ways they had never imagined. This is a novel about the end of colonialism, class and race—and about the ways in which love can complicate all of these things.