Popular African Historical Books
Find historical books written by authors from Africa for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (36)
21.
Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga EN
RwandaDescription:
Introducing Scholastique Mukasonga to the UK: a major international author and her brilliant and award-winning first novel.
22.
Soundjata : ein Mandingo-Epos by Djibril Tamsir Niane DE
GuineaDescription:
D. T. Niane (1932 - 2021), Historiker aus Guinea, lässt das alte Afrika zu uns sprechen. Er ist zu einem der Griots (nämlich Djeli Mamadou Kouyaté) gegangen, und hat aufgezeichnet, was diesem - zwar fantastisch ausgeschmückt, aber im Kern unverfälscht - über Generationen von dem Leben und den Taten des legendär gewordenen Großkönigs Soundjata überliefert wurde. Wir erfahren die Geschichten des "Helden mit den vielen Namen", Sohn des Büffels und des Löwen, der im 13. Jahrhundert zum Begründer des mächtigen Mandin... continue
23.
Sundiata : An Epic of Old Mali by Djibril Tamsir Niane EN
Description:
"The son of Sogolon, the hunchback princess, and Maghan, known as 'the handsome', Sundiata grew up to fulfil the prophesies of the soothsayers that he would unite the twelve kingdoms of Mali into one of the most powerful empires ever known in Africa, which at its peak stretched right across the savanna belt from the shores of the Atlantic to the dusty walls of Timbuktu." "Retold by generations of griots - the guardians of African culture - this oral tradition has been handed down from the thirteenth century and captures all the mystery and majesty of medieval African kingship. It is an epic ta... continue
24.
The Death of Comrade President by ALAIN. MABANCKOU EN
CongoDescription:
In Pointe-Noire, in the small neighbourhood of Voungou, on the family plot where young Michel lives with Maman Pauline and Papa Roger, life goes on. But Michel's everyday cares - lost grocery money, the whims of his parents' moods, their neighbours' squabbling, his endless daydreaming - are soon swept away by the wind of history. In March 1977, just before the arrival of the short rainy season, Comrade President Marien Ngouabi is brutally murdered in Brazzaville, and not even naïve Michel can remain untouched. Starting as a tender, wry portrait of an ordinary Congolese family, Alain Mabanckou ... continue
25.
The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed EN
SomaliaDescription:
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2021 SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALES BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2022 'Chilling and utterly compelling, The Fortune Men shines an essential light on a much-neglected period of our national life' Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland Mahmood Mattan is a fixture in Cardiff's Tiger Bay, 1952, which bustles with Somali and West Indian sailors, Maltese businessmen and Jewish families. He is a father, chancer, some-time petty thief. He is many things, in fact, but he is not a murderer. So when a shopkeeper is brutally killed and all e... continue
26.
The House at Sugar Beach : In Search of a Lost African Childhood by Helene Cooper EN
LiberiaDescription:
The author traces her childhood in war-torn Liberia and her reunion with a foster sister who had been left behind when her family fled the region.
27.
The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell EN
ZambiaDescription:
Electrifying, playful, ambitious, brilliant - a Zambian debut novel that follows three generations of three families, telling the story of a nation, and the grand sweep of time 'In turns charming, heartbreaking, and breathtaking, The Old Drift is a staggeringly ambitious, genre-busting multigenerational saga with moxie for days... I wanted it to go on forever. A worthy heir to Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude." Carmen Maria Machado On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there was once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. He... continue
28.
The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed EN
Description:
From the author of The Fortune Men, longlisted for The Booker Prize 2021... 'From Somaliland's bitter past blooms a moving and mature novel of conflict and survival' Independent It is 1988 and Hargeisa waits. Whispers of revolution travel on the dry winds but still the dictatorship remains secure. Soon, and through the eyes of three women, we will see Somalia fall. Nine-year-old Deqohas left the vast refugee camp she was born in, lured to the city by the promise of her first pair of shoes. Kawsar, a solitary widow, is trapped in her little house with its garden clawed from the desert, confined... continue
29.
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay EN
Country: Africa / 
South Africa
South Africa
Description:
“The Power of One has everything: suspense, the exotic, violence; mysticism, psychology and magic; schoolboy adventures, drama.” –The New York Times “Unabashedly uplifting . . . asserts forcefully what all of us would like to believe: that the individual, armed with the spirit of independence–‘the power of one’–can prevail.” –Cleveland Plain Dealer In 1939, as Hitler casts his enormous, cruel shadow across the world, the seeds of apartheid take root in South Africa. There, a boy called Peekay is born. His childhood is marked by humiliation and abandonment, yet he vows to survive and conceives ... continue
30.
The Scent of Burnt Flowers : A Novel by Blitz Bazawule EN
GhanaDescription:
Fleeing persecution in 1960s America, a Black couple seeks asylum in Ghana, but fresh dangers and old secrets threaten their newfound freedom in this hypnotic debut novel. “I am truly blown away by this novel.”—Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Red at the Bone When the windshield of his Chevy Impala shatters in a dark diner parking lot in Alabama, Melvin moves without thinking. A split-second reaction marrows in his bones from the days of war, but this time it is the safety of his fiancé, Bernadette, at stake. Impulse keeps them alive, and yet they flee with blood on the... continue