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Recommended books (15)
Travel the world without leaving your chair. The target of the Read Around The World Challenge is to read at least one book written by an author from each and every country in the world. All books that are listed here as part of the "Read Around Africa Challenge" were written by authors from Zimbabwe. Find a great book for the next part of your reading journey around the world from this book list. The following popular books have been recommended so far.

1.
Butterfly Burning

Butterfly Burning by Yvonne Vera EN

Rating: 5     2 Votes
Country: Africa / Zimbabwe flag Zimbabwe
Description:
Butterfly Burning brings the brilliantly poetic voice of Zimbabwean writer Yvonne Vera to American readers for the first time. Set in Makokoba, a black township, in the late l940s, the novel is an intensely bittersweet love story.
Recommended: 05 Jan 2023

2.
Glory

Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo EN

Rating: 4     3 Votes
Country: Africa / Zimbabwe flag Zimbabwe
Description:
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE From the award-winning author of the Booker Prize finalist We Need New Names, an anthropomorphic blockbuster of a novel that chronicles the fall of an oppressive regime, and the chaotic, kinetic potential for real liberation that rises in its wake. Glory centres around the unexpected fall of Old Horse, a long-serving, tyrannical leader of the fictional country of Jidada, and the drama that follows for a rumbustious nation of animals on the precarious path to freedom. Inspired by the unexpected fall by coup, in November 2017, of Robert Mugabe—Zimbabwe’s pres... continue

3.

Harvest of Thorns by Shimmer Chinodya EN

Rating: 5     1 Vote
Country: Africa / Zimbabwe flag Zimbabwe
Description:
The 1990 Commonwealth Writers Regional Prize voted Harvest of Thorns the winner in the Best Book category. Harvest of Thorns tells the story of Benjamin Tichafa who grows up in Rhodesia in the 1960s. From a conservative, religious family, but exposed to the heady ideas of the black nationalist movements, the young student is pulled in different directions. Isolated and troubled at boarding school, he is provoked into leaving, making his way to Mozambique, and joining the freedom fighters. There, in the crucible of a bitter civil war of liberation, the young man develops into manhood. Returning... continue
Genre
Recommended: 03 Sep 2022

4.

House of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera EN

Rating: 5     1 Vote
Country: Africa / Zimbabwe flag Zimbabwe
Description:
Winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize, 1979 and first published in 1978, The House of Hunger is a selection of interconnected short stories that tell of Zimbabwe in chaos. In a style somewhat reminiscent of Joyce's Dubliners, the stories deal with psychological and social alienation. Dambudzo Marechera's work is not material typically associated with African literature. His stories are psychologically, rather than politically, motivated as his depictions of living in exile and outsiderhood show.
Genre
Recommended: 22 May 2018

5.
House of Stone

House of Stone by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma EN

Rating: 5     2 Votes
Country: Africa / Zimbabwe flag Zimbabwe
Description:
Winner of the Edward Stanford Prize for Fiction with a Sense of Place; 2019Longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize; 2019Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize; 2019__________'Easily the best debut I've read this year; Tshuma's novel is both hilarious and horrifying; filled with compassion; anger and despair. [Her] unreliable narrator [is] of the kind that deserves to be remembered up there with Humbert Humbert' Kim Evans; Culturefly__________Bukhosi has gone missing. His father; Abed; and his mother; Agnes; cling to the hope that he has run away; rather than been murdered by government thugs. ... continue
Genre Adult
Recommended: 16 Nov 2022

6.

Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga EN

Rating: 4.1     7 Votes
Country: Africa / Zimbabwe flag Zimbabwe
Description:
A modern classic from the Booker-shortlisted author of This Mournable Body The groundbreaking first novel in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s award-winning trilogy, Nervous Conditions, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and has been “hailed as one of the 20th century’s most significant works of African literature” (The New York Times). Two decades before Zimbabwe would win independence and ended white minority rule, thirteen-year-old Tambudzai Sigauke embarks on her education. On her shoulders rest the economic hopes of her parents, siblings, and extended family, and within her burns the desire for indepe... continue
Recommended: 20 Apr 2022

7.
Tears of the Giraffe

Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith EN

Rating: 4     74 Votes
Country: Africa / Zimbabwe flag Zimbabwe
Description:
THE SECOND BOOK IN THE BELOVED NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY SERIES The one where Precious gains a new family . . . Mma Ramotswe of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is hoping to set up home with Mr J.L.B. Maketoni. But first she must deal with his scheming, misbehaving maid. She also has to confront the most difficult case of her career so far: that of an American who went missing ten years ago, and about whom all leads have long since dried up. Then there are not one, but two sudden additions to Mma's family . . .
Recommended: 26 Jan 2023

8.

The book of Memory by Petina Gappah EN

Rating: 4     7 Votes
Country: Africa / Zimbabwe flag Zimbabwe
Description:
An albino woman named Memory is languishing in a maximum security prison in Harare, Zimbabwe, where she has been tried and convicted of murder. As part of her appeal, her lawyer insists that she write down what happened; that is, the events that led to the killing of her adoptive father, Lloyd Hendricks. But who was Lloyd Hendricks? Why does Memory feel no remorse for his death? And did everything happen exactly as she remembers? Moving between the townships of the poor and the suburbs of the rich, and between past and present, the 2009 Guardian First Book Award–winning writer Petina Gappah we... continue
Recommended: 20 Feb 2018

9.

The Hairdresser of Harare by Tendai Huchu EN

0 Ratings
Country: Africa / Zimbabwe flag Zimbabwe
Description:
Vimbai is the star hairdresser of her salon, the smartest in Harare, Zimbabwe, until the enigmatic Dumisani appears. Losing customers to this good-looking, smooth-talking young man, Vimbai fears for her job, vital if she's to provide for her young child. But in a remarkable reversal the two becomes allies, Dumi renting a room from Vimbai, then inviting her to a family wedding, where to her surprise, he introduces her to his rich parents as his 'girlfriend'. Soon they are running their own Harare salon, attracting the wealthiest and most powerful clients in the city. But disaster is near, as Vi... continue
Genre
Recommended: 07 Sep 2022

10.

The Legacy by Tsitsi V. Himunyanga-Phiri EN

Rating: 5     1 Vote
Country: Africa / Zimbabwe flag Zimbabwe
Description:
This new Zambian woman writer is a leader in Zambia on issues concerned with women and development. In her first novel she puts into focus the degrading beliefs and practices of a male-dominated society. Dealing, for example, with issues of widowhood and sexual exploitation, the novel's message is a call for a change in attitude towards the issue of inheritance. But the novel does not fall into the trap of blaming all such societal ills on culture and men; rather she enjoins women themselves to fight for their rights and not assume that a man should do everything for them.
Genre
Recommended: 19 Aug 2022


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