The Best Novel I’ve Ever Read (at least most recently)

I have just finished reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun.

I am blown away by Adichie’s talent.  I love it when this happens: I discover a new author (well, new to me) and fall in love with literature all over again.

This novel succeeds on so many levels.  It follows two dramatic love relationships and all the complications that ensue from intimacy with another in a world where betrayal and jealousy exist.  It portrays the various classes of post-colonial Nigeria through the voices of three very different characters: a houseboy from the village, an educated middle-class woman and a British expatriate.  Then, once you as a reader have begun to deeply care about these characters, Adichie unleashes upon them all the horrors of the Nigerian civil war.

Next up on my reading list: her first novel Purple Hibiscus and her more recent collection of short stories The Thing Around Your Neck.

Below is an interview in which Adichie discusses her writing and influences, most notably that of Chinua Achebe.

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