Drilling beneath recent headlines of violence and terrorism in Nigeria, one finds a country bursting with energy, life, and hospitality.

Advance publicity for Game Change, the new book by John Heileman and Mark Halperin about the 2008 presidential race, brought with it a furor about some reportedly "outrageous" racial remarks Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid apparently made about then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. 

A whole new generation of minority writers has come to prominence whose work signals a radical turn to a "postrace" era in American literature.