Popular African Biography Books

Find biography books written by authors from Africa for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (43)

21.

Notes from the Hyena's Belly : An Ethiopian Boyhood by Nega Mezlekia EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Africa / Ethiopia flag Ethiopia
Description:
The author recalls his childhood in Ethiopia interspersed with information about the customs and everyday life in his hometown of Jijiga.

22.

One Day I Will Write about This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Africa / Kenya flag Kenya
Description:
A groundbreaking memoir by the acclaimed Kenyan Caine Prize winner.

23.

Pleidooi voor leven by Denis Mukwege NL

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
Leven en werk van de Congolese gynaecoloog Denis Mukwege, Nobelprijswinnaar voor de Vrede 2018, die vrouwen behandelt die het slachtoffer zijn geweldadige verkrachtingen en genitale verminking.

24.

Running for My Life : One Lost Boy's Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games by Lopez Lomong, Mark Tabb EN

0 Ratings
Country: Africa / South Sudan flag South Sudan
Description:
This is a story about outrunning the devil and achieving the impossible faith, diligence, and the desire to give back. Lomong chronicles his inspiring ascent from a barefoot lost boy of the Sudanese Civil War to a Nike sponsored athlete on the US Olympic Team. He shares his commitment to keep moving forward and find God in each step.

25.
Singing Away the Hunger

Singing Away the Hunger : The Autobiography of an African Woman by Mpho ‘M’atsepo Nthunya EN

0 Ratings
Country: Africa / Lesotho flag Lesotho
Description:
A compelling and unique autobiography by an African woman with little formal education, less privilege, and almost no experience of books or writing. Mpho's voice is a voice almost never heard in literature or history, a voice from within the struggle of ""ordinary"" African women to negotiate a world which incorporates ancient pastoral ways and the congestion, brutality, and racist violence of city life. It is also the voice of a born storyteller who has a subject worthy of her gifts - a story for all the world to hear.

26.

Sipping Dom Pérignon Through A Straw by Eddie Ndopu EN

0 Ratings
Description:
'Uncompromising... A masterful writer poised for even more great success' - Forest Whitaker, Academy award-winning actor A memoir, penned with one good finger, about being profoundly disabled and profoundly successful. Global humanitarian Eddie Ndopu was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare degenerative motor neuron disease affecting his mobility. He was told that he wouldn't live beyond age five and yet, Ndopu thrived. He grew up loving pop music and haute couture, lip syncing to the latest hits, and was the only wheelchair user at his school, where he flourished academically. By his lat... continue

27.

Slave: My True Story by Mende Nazer EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Africa / Sudan flag Sudan
Description:
The author describes the years she spent as a slave to a wealthy Arab family in Khartoum and her subsequent break for freedom after she was sent to work for a diplomat in London.

28.

Spirit Rising : My Life, My Music by Angelique Kidjo, Rachel Wenrick EN

0 Ratings
Country: Africa / Benin flag Benin
Description:
“Spinning a dramatic soulful mix of text, photos, song lyrics, and even family recipes, Grammy-winning West African-born Angelique Kidjo ... takes us from her first vocal performance ... to her current life as a world-pop-chart-topping singer-songwriter, humanitarian activist, and UNICEF goodwill ambassador.” — Elle “This inspiring memoir is as much about the author’s love for family and homeland as it is about music ... readers will be enamored of this beautifully told tale of courage and determination, revealing an expansive life that proves ‘music has no color, no language, no boundaries.’ ... continue

29.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Africa / Malawi flag Malawi
Description:
Now a Netflix film starring and directed by Chiwetel Ejiofor, this is a gripping memoir of survival and perseverance about the heroic young inventor who brought electricity to his Malawian village. When a terrible drought struck William Kamkwamba's tiny village in Malawi, his family lost all of the season's crops, leaving them with nothing to eat and nothing to sell. William began to explore science books in his village library, looking for a solution. There, he came up with the idea that would change his family's life forever: he could build a windmill. Made out of scrap metal and old bicycle... continue

30.

The Dark Child by Laye Camara, James Kirkup EN

0 Ratings
Country: Africa / Guinea flag Guinea
Description:
The Dark Child is a vivid and graceful memoir of Camara Laye's youth in the village of Kouroussa, French Guinea, a place steeped in mystery. Laye marvels over his mother's supernatural powers, his father's distinction as the village goldsmith, and his own passage into manhood, which is marked by animistic beliefs and bloody rituals. Eventually, he must choose between this unique place and the academic success that lures him to distant cities. More than autobiography of one boy, this is the universal story of sacred traditions struggling against the encroachment of a modern world. A passionate ... continue