Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

After several so-so books in the past couple weeks, I stumbled upon this gem set during the Nigerian civil war in the 1960s. The book focuses on five main characters, a 15-year old houseboy (Ugwu), his revolutionary and anticolonial master (Odenigbo), twin daughters of a wealthy politician (Olanna and Kainene), and a white researcher desperate to gain acceptance in the African community (Richard). As each character struggles with his or her individual identity - and their relationships among each other, the Igbo people of eastern Nigeria secede to form the independent nation of Biafra. The ensuing civil war takes the lives of hundreds of thousands (depending on which side's statistics you believe), as Ugwu attempts to avoid conscription, Olanna discovers that her one-time wealth cannot save her from starvation, and Odenigbo fails to see that all the intellectualizing in the world cannot prevent the murder of his family. Adichie's writing and her ability to bring painful histories to light has earned her the title "Africa's next Chinua Achebe" (author of Things Fall Apart). Purely as a work of fiction, I found the characters rich and believable, if not frustrating in their set ways. As a piece of historical fiction, this is a devastating, yet illuminating introduction into yet another tragic chapter of Africa's history.