Book - Half of a Yellow Sun (2006)

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was an impressive work.  Though I'm an avid reader, this isn't my genre of choice - Sci-Fiction/Fantasy, it isn't!  A friend recommended it, perhaps in the futile hope of expanding my tastes.

Adichie does a great job of developing interesting characters who capture the reader's attention.  Their experiences before and during the Nigerian-Biafran War personalize the historical setting and it becomes more than a dry recitation of facts.  It teaches subtly while keeping the reader motivated to finish the book.

So I learned that pre-war Nigeria was really an artificial English construct, with several hundred ethnic groups mashed together more for efficiency and economics than any true national identity.  However, the three major regional groups were the Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba.  The book explores tensions that led to the Igbo secession and subsequent war.

The book begins with an introduction to Ugwu, an intelligent but unwordly Igbo village boy who gets an opportunity to work as a houseboy for a professor at a local college.  Eventually we meet Olanna, who is Ugwu's master's girlfriend.  She and her sister, Kainene, are from a very wealthy Igbo family and the story begins to center on the two sisters and their relationships with each other as well as the men in their lives, all while history unfolds and intrudes into their comfortable lives.  The idealistic fervor of the academics dim somewhat as the harsh realities of war are realized and innocence is lost by every character in one way or another by the time the book is finished.

For me, the novel was educational and very easy to read.  I was captivated by the evolution of Ugwu as he matured and began to understand the world around him, sometimes better than the better-educated masters he served.  It also showed clearly the Lord of the Flies type of regression that can occur when our social framework collapses, all the more horrifying when applied to an entire nation.  I would strongly recommend this book, regardless of your reading tastes.