Nigeria

Have you ever heard of Biafra? It was a country, though it didn't last long. Biafra was formerly part of Nigeria, and now it is again. That's why I label this post Nigeria. Nigeria itself hasn't been around very long, having gained its independence in 1960. Chimamanda Adichie's novel Half of a Yellow Sun tells the story of Biafra, a tiny country whose flag showed half of a yellow sun, as you can see on the cover of the hardback edition. This book, which is extremely well written, is not an easy book to read ... because of the horrors of genocide. I highly recommend this book.

From the publisher:

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.

Here's Jill's review of this book.