English books from Africa
Recommended English books (825)
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
If you speak English here are some English books from Africa for the next part of the "Read Around The World Challenge".
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Lesotho132.
Changes : A Love Story by Ama Ata Aidoo EN
GhanaDescription:
Changes explores the complex world in which the lives of professional working women have changed sharply, but the cultural assumptions of men's lives have not. Witty and compelling, Aidoo's novel, according to Manthia Diawara, "inaugurates a new realist style in African literature." "Aidoo writes with intense power in a novel that, in examining the role of women in modern African society, also sheds light on women's problems around the globe."-Publishers Weekly (starred review) Suggested for course use in: African literature African studies Family Studies Ama Ata Aidoo, one of Ghana's most dis... continue
133.
Children of the New World : A Novel of the Algerian War by Assia Djebar EN
AlgeriaDescription:
A compelling war novel, as seen by women, sheds light on the current Iraq conflict.
134.
Chiquinho : A Novel of Cabo Verde by Baltasar Lopes da Silva EN
Country: Africa / 
Cape Verde
Cape Verde
Description:
Originally published in Portuguese in 1947, Baltazar Lopes's Chiquinho offers a rich and compelling exploration of Cabo Verde's unique identity. Tracing the arc of its young protagonist's life as he approaches adulthood, the novel follows Chiquinho as he leaves his village, journeys to São Vicente Island to further his education, returns home as drought and famine strike the archipelago, and makes the difficult decision to join his father in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Reflecting the challenges faced by the Creole intellectuals of the so-called Claridade generation, this long-overdue English t... continue
135.
Chronicle of a Last Summer : A Novel of Egypt by Yasmine El Rashidi EN
EgyptDescription:
A young Egyptian woman recounts her personal and political coming of age in this brilliant debut novel. Cairo, 1984. A blisteringly hot summer. A young girl in a sprawling family house. Her days pass quietly: listening to a mother’s phone conversations, looking at the Nile from a bedroom window, watching the three state-sanctioned TV stations with the volume off, daydreaming about other lives. Underlying this claustrophobic routine is mystery and loss. Relatives mutter darkly about the newly-appointed President Mubarak. Everyone talks with melancholy about the past. People disappear overnight.... continue
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137.
Circles in a Forest by Dalene Matthee EN
Country: Africa / 
South Africa
South Africa
Description:
Born and bred into the tawny magnificence of Africa, Saul would fight to save the vanishing world of his inheritance.
138.
Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous EN
Description:
The immigrant tenants of a building in Rome offer skewed accounts of a murder in this prize-winning satire by the Algerian-born Italian author (Publishers Weekly). Piazza Vittorio is home to a polyglot community of immigrants who have come to Rome from all over the world. But when a tenant is murdered in the building’s elevator, the delicate balance is thrown into disarray. As each of the victim’s neighbors is questioned by the police, readers are offered an all-access pass into the most colorful neighborhood in contemporary Rome. With language as colorful as the neighborhood it describes, eac... continue
139.
Co-Wives, Co-Widows by Adrienne Yabouza EN
Country: Africa / 
Central African Republic
Central African Republic
Description:
Co-Wives, Co-Widows is the first adult work of fiction from the Central African Republic to be translated into English. This is the story of Ndongo Passy and Grekpoubou, the two widows of Lidou. Following their husband's sudden and unexplained death, they find themselves fighting tooth and nail for all that is important to them. A playful, bittersweet, story full of dry wit and local colour, set against a backdrop of political instability, corruption and the friction between the old and the new in Bangui in the Central African Republic.
140.
Cockroaches by Scholastique Mukasonga EN
RwandaDescription:
Mukasonga unsparingly resurrects the horrors of the Rwandan geocide while lyrically recording the quieter moments of daily life with her family—a moving tribute to all those who are displaced, who suffer. Mukasonga’s extraordinary, lyrical, and heartbreaking book … is indispensable reading for anyone who cares about the endurance of the human spirit and who hopes for a better world. — Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Los Angeles Review of Books Scholastique Mukasonga’s Cockroaches is a compelling chronicle of the author’s childhood in the years leading up to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In a spare and pen... continue