Read Around Africa Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Africa.
Best books from Africa (1156)
851.
Call Me American by Abdi Nor Iftin EN
SomaliaDescription:
Abdi Nor Iftin first fell in love with America from afar. As a child, he learned English by listening to American pop and watching action films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. When U.S. marines landed in Mogadishu to take on the warlords, Abdi cheered the arrival of these Americans, who seemed as heroic as those of the movies. Sporting American clothes and dance moves, he became known around Mogadishu as Abdi American, but when the radical Islamist group al-Shabaab rose to power in 2006, it became dangerous to celebrate Western culture. Desperate to make a living, Abdi used his language skills... continue
853.
North of Dawn : A Novel by Nuruddin Farah EN
Description:
A couple's tranquil life abroad is irrevocably transformed by the arrival of their son's widow and children, in the latest from Somalia's most celebrated novelist. For decades, Gacalo and Mugdi have lived in Oslo, where they've led a peaceful, largely assimilated life and raised two children. Their beloved son, Dhaqaneh, however, is driven by feelings of alienation to jihadism in Somalia, where he kills himself in a suicide attack. The couple reluctantly offers a haven to his family. But on arrival in Oslo, their daughter-in-law cloaks herself even more deeply in religion, while her children h... continue
854.
Description:
From the internationally acclaimed author of North of Dawn, Links is a novel that will stand as a classic of modern world literature. Jeebleh is returning to Mogadiscio, Somalia, for the first time in twenty years. But this is not a nostalgia trip—his last residence there was a jail cell. And who could feel nostalgic for a city like this? U.S. troops have come and gone, and the decimated city is ruled by clan warlords and patrolled by qaat-chewing gangs who shoot civilians to relieve their adolescent boredom. Diverted in his pilgrimage to visit his mother’s grave, Jeebleh is asked to investiga... continue
855.
Keeping Hope Alive : One Woman: 90,000 Lives Changed by Dr. Hawa Abdi EN
Description:
The moving memoir of one brave woman who, along with her daughters, has kept 90,000 of her fellow citizens safe, healthy, and educated for over 20 years in Somalia. Dr. Hawa Abdi, "the Mother Teresa of Somalia" and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, is the founder of a massive camp for internally displaced people located a few miles from war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia. Since 1991, when the Somali government collapsed, famine struck, and aid groups fled, she has dedicated herself to providing help for people whose lives have been shattered by violence and poverty. She turned her 1300 acres of farmland int... continue
856.
The Youth of God : A Novel by Hassan Ghedi Santur EN
Description:
The Youth of God tells the story of Nuur, a sensitive and academically gifted seventeen-year-old boy growing up in Toronto's Somali neighbourhood, as he negotiates perilously between the calling of his faith and his intellectual ambitions. This intensely moving novel is also a powerful allegory of the struggle for the soul of Islam in modern times.
857.
Aman : The Story of a Somali Girl by Aman EN
Description:
This is the extraordinary first-person account of a young woman's coming of age in Somalia and her struggles against the obligations and strictures of family and society. By the time she is nine, Aman has undergone a ritual circumcision ceremony; at eleven, her innocent romance with a white boy leads to a murder; at thirteen she is given away in an arranged marriage to a stranger. Aman eventually runs away to Mogadishu, where her beauty and rebellious spirit leads her to the decadent demimonde of white colonialists. Hers is a world in which women are both chattel and freewheeling entrepreneurs... continue
858.
Dina händer var fulla av liv by Suad Ali SV
Description:
Dina händer var fulla av liv skildrar en kvinna före, under och efter flykten. Romanen ställer frågor som: vad händer med en människa som vuxit upp i en privilegierad miljö och sedan förlorar allt, en kvinna som varit lyckligt gift och Mogadishus bästa gymnasielärare som hamnar som ung änka i Sandviken och tvingas försörja sig genom att städa skolkorridorer? Vi får följa Nora från barndomen i Baidoa, via gymnasietiden i Somalias huvudstad Mogadishu, genom de begynnande orosåren i landet, när klankonflikterna och politisk instabilitet växer sig allt större. Till sist finns ingen annan utväg än ... continue
859.
The Last Nomad: Coming of Age in the Somali Desert by Shugri Said Salh EN
Description:
A remarkable and inspiring true story that "stuns with raw beauty" about one woman's resilience, her courageous journey to America, and her family's lost way of life. Born in Somalia, a spare daughter in a large family, Shugri Said Salh was sent at age six to live with her nomadic grandmother in the desert. The last of her family to learn this once-common way of life, Salh found herself chasing warthogs, climbing termite hills, herding goats, and moving constantly in search of water and grazing lands with her nomadic family. For Salh, though the desert was a harsh place threatened by drought, ... continue
860.
Maps by Nuruddin Farah EN
Description:
A Somali youth is torn between duty to family and country. On the one hand Askar, an orphan, should look after his foster mother, on the other he wants to be a man and emulate his father who died fighting the Ethiopians. By an English-speaking Somali writer, author of Secrets.