Popular African Memoir Books
Find memoir books written by authors from Africa for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (57)
1.
A Woman of Firsts by Edna Adan Ismail EN
SomaliaDescription:
'The Muslim Mother Teresa' Huffington Post Imprisonment. Mutilation. Persecution. Edna Adan Ismail endured it all - for the women of Africa.
Uganda3.
Amkoullel, l'enfant peul by Amadou Hampâté Bâ FR
MaliDescription:
Amkoullel, tel est le surnom que porte le jeune Hampâté Bâ quand, au début du XXe siècle, il s'initie aux traditions familiales séculaires. Fréquentant l'école française en même temps que la coranique, courant la savane alors que des proches partent pour une guerre que l'on dit mondiale, mais qui les concerne si peu, à l'écoute des grands maîtres de la parole, il devient lui-même, à son insu, un griot, garant et dépositaire d'une civilisation orale en pleine mutation. A la fois roman d'aventure, tableau de mœurs et fresque historique, ce livre restitue dans une langue savoureuse et limpide tou... continue
4.
Nigeria5.
Birth of a Dream Weaver : A Writer's Awakening by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o EN
KenyaDescription:
From one of the world's greatest writers, the story of how the author found his voice as a novelist at Makerere University in Uganda as a student In this acclaimed memoir, Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o recounts the four years he spent at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda--crucial years during which he found his voice as a journalist, short story writer, playwright, and novelist just as colonial empires were crumbling and new nations were being born--under the shadow of the rivalries, intrigues, and assassinations of the Cold War. Haunted by the memories of the carnage and mass incarcera... continue
South Africa7.
Call Me American by Abdi Nor Iftin EN
Description:
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
8.
Cockroaches by Scholastique Mukasonga EN
RwandaDescription:
Mukasonga unsparingly resurrects the horrors of the Rwandan geocide while lyrically recording the quieter moments of daily life with her family—a moving tribute to all those who are displaced, who suffer. Mukasonga’s extraordinary, lyrical, and heartbreaking book … is indispensable reading for anyone who cares about the endurance of the human spirit and who hopes for a better world. — Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Los Angeles Review of Books Scholastique Mukasonga’s Cockroaches is a compelling chronicle of the author’s childhood in the years leading up to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In a spare and pen... continue
9.
Dreams in a Time of War : A Childhood Memoir by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o EN
Description:
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.
10.
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