Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, Purple Hibiscus: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Three-Book Collection

‘A delicious, important novel’ The Times

‘Alert, alive and gripping’ Independent

‘Some novels tell a great story and others make you change the way you look at the world. Americanah does both’ Guardian

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has firmly established herself as one of the world’s most exciting and important young writers – a regular award-winner, ‘endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers’ (Chinua Achebe).

A gripping, vividly written masterpiece, ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ won the Orange Prize for Fiction. The lives of Ugwu, a young boy from a poor village, Olanna, a middle class woman, and Richard, a white man and a writer intersect in intimate and unexpected ways during the vicious Nigerian civil war. This is a story about Africa, about moral responsibility, the end of colonialism, ethnic allegiances, class and race – and about how love can move in to complicate all these things.

Fearless, gripping, spanning three continents and numerous lives, ‘Americanah’ is a richly told story of love and expectation set in today’s globalized world. Ifemelu and Obinze fell in love as teenagers in Lagos. Thriteen years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria; Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer in America. When Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and the pair reignite their shared passions – for their homeland and for each other – they face the toughest decisions of their lives.

‘Purple Hibiscus’ is a compelling tale of adolescence, set against the backdrop of Nigeria’s military coup. Fifteen-year-old Kambili’s life is regulated by the high walls of her family estate and the dictates of her repressive father. However when Nigeria begins to fall apart, Kambili and her brother are sent to live in their aunt’s laughter-filled house, where they discover life, love, and a terrible, bruising secret deep within her family.

Reviews

Praise for ‘Americanah’:

‘A brilliant novel: epic in scope, personal in resonance and with lots to say’ Elizabeth Day, Observer

‘A delicious, important novel from a writer with a great deal to say’ The Times

‘A brilliant exploration of being African in America … an urgent and important book, further evidence that its author is a real talent’ Sunday Telegraph

Praise for ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’:

'Vividly written, thrumming with life … a remarkable novel. In its compassionate intelligence as in its capacity for intimate portraiture, this novel is a worthy successor to such twentieth-century classics as Chinua Achebe's “Things Fall Apart” and V. S. Naipaul's “A Bend in the River”.' Joyce Carol Oates

'Here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers.’ Chinua Achebe

'I look with awe and envy at this young woman from Africa who is recording the history of her country. She is fortunate – and we, her readers, are even luckier.' Edmund White

Praise for ‘Purple Hibiscus’:

'A beautiful and often harrowing story.' Observer Books of the Year

‘A sensitive and touching story of a child exposed too early to religious intolerance and the uglier side of the Nigerian state.’ J. M. Coetzee

‘Political brutality and domestic violence, religion and witchcraft all merge with subtle force in this memorable novel. Chimammanda Ngozi Adichie uses childhood innocence to write Nigerian history with the eye of a family insider.’ Hugo Hamilton

‘“Purple Hibiscus” is the best debut I've read since Arundhati Roy's “The God of Small Things”.’ Jason Cowley, Literary Editor of the New Statesman