#59 - Half of a Yellow Sun

After enjoying Purple Hibiscus so much, I wasn't sure Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's sophomore effort, Half of a Yellow Sun (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006) would live up to expectations. Did it ever. In a word, wow. Tells the story of the secession of the short-lived Republic of Biafra from Nigeria in 1967, and the civil war that followed, through the eyes of three characters: Ugwu, who grows from a naive peasant teenaged houseboy to college professor Odenigbo into a cynical young man and soldier over the course of the novel; Olanna, Odenigbo's beautiful mistress, whose independent streak leads her to reject the privileged life of her wealthy parents; and Richard, the British expat and aspiring journalist with perpetual writer's block who falls in love with Odenigbo's twin sister Kainene. Beautiful and sad.