Half of a Yellow Sun

With the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Adichie weaves together the lives of five characters caught up in the extraordinary tumult of the decade. Fifteen-year-old Ugwu is houseboy to Odenigbo, a university professor who sends him to school, and in whose living room Ugwu hears voices full of revolutionary zeal.

Odenigbo's beautiful mistress, Olanna, a sociology teacher, is running away from her parents' world of wealth and excess; Kainene, her urbane twin, is taking over their father's business; and Kainene's English lover, Richard, forms a bridge between their two worlds. As we follow these intertwined lives through a military coup, the Biafran secession and the subsequent war, Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise, and intimately, the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place.

Epic, ambitious and triumphantly realized,Half of a Yellow Sunis a more powerful, dramatic and intensely emotional picture of modern Africa than any we have had before. (FromVintage Canada)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian-American author whose works range from novels to short stories to nonfiction.

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wins 'Best of the Best' Baileys Women's Prize

Interviews withChimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Sunday Edition37:17"Americanah" with author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks to guest host Kevin Sylvester about her latest book "Americanah," a story about love, race, and the politics of hair.

Writers and Company52:37Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on why she can't stay silent

The influential Nigerian author talked to Eleanor in 2009 about her short story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck, and her award-winning novel, Half of a Yellow Sun.