Half of a yellow sun

A heartbreaking, exquisitely written masterpiece. One of the ten books - novels, memoirs and one very unusual biography - that make up our Matchbook Classics' series, a stunningly redesigned collection of some of the best loved titles on our backlist. In 1960s Nigeria, three lives intersect. Ugwu, a boy from a poor village, works as a houseboy for a university professor. Olanna has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos to live with her charismatic lover, the professor. And Richard, a shy Englishman, is in thrall to Olanna's enigmatic twin sister. As the horrific Nigerian Civil War engulfs them, they are thrown together and pulled apart in ways they had never imagined. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's masterpiece is a novel about the end of colonialism, class and race and about the ways in which love can complicate all of these things.