Popular African Memoir Books
Find memoir books written by authors from Africa for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (111)
Sierra Leone22.
Don't Look Back : A Memoir of War, Survival, and My Journey from Sudan to America by Achut Deng, Keely Hutton EN
Country: Africa / 
South Sudan
South Sudan
Description:
I want life. After a deadly attack in South Sudan left six-year-old Achut Deng without a family, she lived in refugee camps for ten years, until a refugee relocation program gave her the opportunity to move to the United States. When asked why she should be given a chance to leave the camp, Achut simply told the interviewer: I want life. But the chance at starting a new life in a new country came with a different set of challenges. Some of them equally deadly. Taught by the strong women in her life not to look back, Achut kept moving forward, overcoming one obstacle after another, facing each ... continue
23.
Dreams in a Time of War : A Childhood Memoir by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o EN
KenyaDescription:
Recounts the story of the author's childhood, covering his early years in World War II-era Kenya as the fifth child of a third wife, his thirst for learning that singled him out, and the political struggles that shaped his life.
24.
Dreams Of Trespass : Tales Of A Harem Girlhood by Fatima Mernissi EN
MoroccoDescription:
This "wonderful and enchanting" memoir tells the revelatory true story of one Muslim girl's life in her family's French Moroccan harem, set against the backdrop of World War II (The New York Times Book Review). "I was born in a harem in 1940 in Fez, Morocco..." So begins Fatima Mernissi in this illuminating narrative of a childhood behind the iron gates of a domestic harem. In Dreams of Trespass, Mernissi weaves her own memories with the dreams and memories of the women who surrounded her in the courtyard of her youth -- women who, without access to the world outside, recreated it from sheer i... continue
25.
El nen negre by Camara Laye CA
GuineaDescription:
Un jove escriptor de 25 anys decideix narrar la seva infantesa africana, a l'Alta Guinea. Però, més enllà d'un relat autobiogràfic, ens retorna, amb tota la seva veritat, la vida quotidiana, les tradicions i els costums de tot un poble. Amb aquest Nen negre, Camara Laye ens ofereix un llibre intemporal ple de finor i de talent que recull, en un text fluid i delicat, tota la mitologia africana i la plena capacitat poètica de la vida captada amb els ulls transparents i innocents d'un noi.
26.
El niño que domó el viento by William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer ES
MalawiDescription:
"Cuando una terrible sequía asoló la pequeña aldea donde vivía William Kamkwamba, su familia perdió todas las cosechas y se quedó sin nada que comer y nada que vender. William comenzó entonces a investigar en los libros de ciencia que había en la biblioteca en busca de una solución, y de este modo encontró la idea que cambiaría la vida de su familia para siempre: construiría un molino de viento. Fabricado a partir de materiales reciclados, metal y fragmentos de bicicletas, el molino de William trajo la electricidad a su casa y ayudó a su familia a obtener el agua que necesitaba para sus cultiv... continue
27.
El traductor : la historia de un nativo del desierto de Darfur by Daoud Hari, Dennis Michael Burke, Megan M. McKenna ES
SudanDescription:
Testimonio de un hombre del desierto en Darfur Una aventura conmovedora que ha cautivado al mundo, narrada en primera persona por un hombre que, con un coraje inusitado, ha sobrevivido al brutal genocidio de Darfur. Daoud Hari creci&ó en un peque&ño pueblo de Sud&án. Cuando su aldea fue atacada y destruida, huy&ó desierto a trav&és con un grupo de amigos, en busca de comida, agua y un refugio donde permanecer a salvo. Al llegar la prensa y los grupos de ayuda internacional a la regi&ón, &él se ofreci&ó como traductor, y pronto estaba guiando a los periodistas por la que sin duda es una de las ... continue
28.
Facing Mount Kenya by Jomo Kenyatta EN
Description:
Facing Mount Kenya, first published in 1938, is a monograph on the life and customs of the Gikuyu people of central Kenya prior to their contact with Europeans. It is unique in anthropological literature for it gives an account of the social institutions and religious rites of an African people, permeated by the emotions that give to customs and observances their meaning. It is characterised by both insight and a tinge of romanticism. The author, proud of his African blood and ways of thought, takes the reader through a thorough and clear picture of Gikuyu life and customs, painting an almost ... continue
29.
From My Mother's Back: A Journey from Kenya to Canada by Njoki Wane EN
Description:
In this warm and honest memoir, celebrated academic Njoki Wane shares her journey from her parents' small coffee farm in Kenya, where she helped her mother in the fields as a child, to her current work as a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Moving smoothly between time and place, Wane uses memories, painful and tender, to show how her early lessons and the support given by her family allowed her to succeed as a woman of colour in the academy, and to later lift up her students facing their own difficult journeys.
30.
From the Four Winds by Hayim Sabato EN
EgyptDescription:
Haim Sabato draws us into his childhood with this evocative rendering of his experiences as a young boy whose family immigrates to Israel in the 1950's, settling in a Ma'abara - a transit camp. He notices his fellow immigrants' concealment of their pasts. He accepts this secrecy, sensing that everything will reveal itself eventually. And this revelation does come, in the form of Farkash, a mysterious, dynamic man who takes Haim under his wing and gradually divulges to him his sorrowful, uplifting story, one that profoundly impacts Haim for the rest of his life...