Half of a Yellow Sun

The beautiful Olanna from a wealthy family was never as bold as her twin sister Kainene, but it was Olanna who decided to leave her comfortable life for love. Moving to a small town where her future husband, a professor at the local university, lived and worked, she hardly understood that she was irrevocably changing her fate. The village boy Ugwu, who entered service in the professor's house, also had no idea that from now on his life would change irreversibly and unpredictably. Shy young Englishman Richard, who came to Nigeria to write a book, had no intention of staying here forever. And the rebellious and spoiled Kainene probably never thought she would shoulder the responsibility for the lives of a vast number of people. But the war that descended upon the country not only distorted people's fates but also changed them, bringing to the surface what is usually hidden behind the gloss of civilization. Olanna, Ugwu, Richard, and all the other characters in the novel will have to endure unimaginable horrors of war, face death time and again, and find themselves again after terrible trials. Full of tense drama, the novel "Half of a Yellow Sun" tells the stories of several people—stories that intertwine in the most astonishing way. Readers have called Adichie's novel an African "Gone with the Wind," and British critics awarded it the prestigious Orange Prize.