Half of a Yellow Sun (Abridged Edition)

By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Narrated by: Adjoa Adoh

Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2007, this is a heartbreaking, exquisitely written literary masterpiece.

Now available as a digital download.

This highly anticipated novel from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is set in Nigeria during the 1960s, at the time of a vicious civil war in which a million people died and thousands were massacred in cold blood.

The three main characters in the novel are swept up in the violence during these turbulent years. One is a young boy from a poor village who is employed at a university lecturer's house. The other is a young middle-class woman, Olanna, who has to confront the reality of the massacre of her relatives. And the third is a white man, a writer who lives in Nigeria for no clear reason, and who falls in love with Olanna's twin sister, a remote and enigmatic character.

As these people's lives intersect, they have to question their own responses to the unfolding political events. This extraordinary novel is about Africa in a wider sense: about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race; and about the ways in which love can complicate all of these things.

©2006 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (P)2007 HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, London UK

Critic reviews

"Tender and harrowing by turn you listen with a throat tense with fear, never knowing the outcome of any moment as neighbour turns on neighbour and the smell of death fills the air. Adjoa Andoh reads it to perfection - every character given a voice, a life, that sings out in a dozen perfectly held accents, from the village Igbo to English received pronunciation." ( The Express)

Great story

Great story. I didn't even know anything about Biafra ever existing. I love all of chimamanda ngozis Adichies books and the narrator was good too. Definitely recommend

A missed opportunity of a war story

This is firstly a war story. The story of a national identity Adichie has set out writing about is somewhat lost in the ridicule she worked into the desperate strife for respect & recognition of the Biafran characters. The choice of a Ghanaian narrator made the many dominant Igbo characters sound like Ghanaians, which sadly added to the overall indefinite message of what would have been a well written work.

Spell binding

This book left me with so much to think about. The characters where so real and the narration absolutely captivating. Highly recommended!