Half of a Yellow Sun
Half of a Yellow SunChimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Buy on Amazon

Half of a Yellow Sun (2006)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Others: Overwhelmingly positive

Half of a Yellow Sun is a novel by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Published in 2006 by Fourth Estate, the novel tells the story of the Biafran War through the perspective of the characters Olanna, Ugwu, and Richard.

ISBN:
9780008329662
Length:
448 pages

Genres: historical fiction, literary fiction

Lists: …

Similar books

1 of 6
  • Americanah

    Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    1969 · 496 pages · 4 reviews

    Others: Overwhelmingly positive

    Americanah is a 2013 novel by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, for which Adichie won the 2013 U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Americanah tells the story of a young Nigerian woman, Ifemelu, who immigrates to the United States to attend university. The novel traces Ifemelu's life in both countries, threaded by her love story with high school classmate Obinze.

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    Similar descriptions
    37%
    On 5+ of the same lists
    37%
    Also historical fiction and literary fiction
    26%
    Personalize your recommendations
  • Homegoing

    Yaa Gyasi

    2016 · 320 pages · 16 reviews

    Others: Overwhelmingly positive

    Homegoing is the debut historical fiction novel by Ghanaian-American author Yaa Gyasi, published in 2016. Each chapter in the novel follows a different descendant of an Asante woman named Maame, starting with her two daughters, who are half-sisters, separated by circumstance: Effia marries James Collins, the British governor in charge of Cape Coast Castle, while her half-sister Esi is held captive in the dungeons below. Subsequent chapters follow their children and following generations. The novel was selected in 2016 for the National Book Foundation's "5 under 35" award, the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for best first book, and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2017. It received the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for 2017, an American Book Award, and the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature.

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    Also historical fiction and literary fiction
    54%
    On 5+ of the same lists
    32%
    2 creators loved both
    14%
    Personalize your recommendations
  • The Kite Runner

    Khaled Hosseini

    2003 · 361 pages · 3 reviews

    Others: Mostly positive

    The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons—their love, their sacrifices, their lies. A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful novel that has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic.

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    Also historical fiction and literary fiction
    56%
    On 5+ of the same lists
    34%
    Jack Edwards loved both
    10%
    Personalize your recommendations
  • The Underground Railroad

    Colson Whitehead

    2000 · 321 pages · 9 reviews

    Others: Leaning positive

    Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    Also historical fiction and literary fiction
    52%
    On 5+ of the same lists
    48%
    Personalize your recommendations
  • Sula

    Toni Morrison

    1973 · 174 pages · 2 reviews

    Others: Positive

    Two girls who grow up to become women. Two friends who become something worse than enemies. In this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison tells the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio. Their devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life.

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    On 5+ of the same lists
    45%
    Also historical fiction and literary fiction
    44%
    Jack Edwards loved both
    11%
    Personalize your recommendations
  • Daisy Jones & The Six

    Taylor Jenkins Reid

    2019 · 384 pages · 41 reviews

    Others: Mostly positive

    A gripping novel about the whirlwind rise of an iconic 1970s rock group and their beautiful lead singer, revealing the mystery behind their infamous break up. Everyone knows Daisy Jones & The Six, but nobody knows the real reason why they split at the absolute height of their popularity…until now. Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go-Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things. Another band getting noticed is The Six, led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road. Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    Also historical fiction and literary fiction
    65%
    On 5+ of the same lists
    24%
    Jack Edwards loved both
    11%
    Personalize your recommendations

Reviews2