Read Around Africa Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Africa.
Best books from Africa (590)
271.
The Return : Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between by Hisham Matar EN
LibyaDescription:
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE IN BIOGRAPHY WINNER OF THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHY WINNER OF THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES' TOP 10 BOOKS OF 2016 The Return is at once a universal and an intensely personal tale. It is an exquisite meditation on how history and politics can bear down on an individual life. And yet Hisham Matar's memoir isn't just about the burden of the past, but the conso... continue
273.
Anatomy of a Disappearance by Hisham Matar EN
Description:
Nuri is a young boy when his mother dies. It seems that nothing will fill the emptiness that her strange death leaves behind in the Cairo apartment he shares with his father. Until Mona. When Nuri first sees Mona, sitting in her bright yellow swimsuit by the pool of the Magda Marina holiday resort, the rest of the world vanishes. But it is Nuri's father with whom Mona falls in love and who she will eventually marry. And their happiness consumes Nuri to the point where he longs to get his father out of the way. However, Nuri will soon regret what he wished for. And, as he and his stepmother's w... continue
275.
Under the Tripoli Sky by Kamal Ben Hameda, Adriana Hunter EN
Description:
This title provides a fascinating portrait of a pre-Gaddafi society on the verge of change. Tripoli in the 1960. A sweltering, segregated society. Hadachinou is a lonely boy. His mother shares secrets with her best friend Jamila while his father prays at the mosque. Sneaking through the sun drenched streets of Tripoli, he listens to the whispered stories of the women. He turns into an invisible witness to their repressed desires while becoming aware of his own.
276.
Solo en el mundo by Hisham Matar ES
Description:
Con el telón de fondo de la vida en Trípoli durante los primeros tiempos de Gaddafi, Hisham Matar ha escrito un emocionante retrato de un niño, cuya mirada inocente va descubriendo las luces y las sombras de un país que despierta a la cruda realidad de los conflictos y tensiones generados durante décadas de plácido letargo. Considerada por The Times «uno de los más brillantes debuts literarios de años recientes», Solo en el mundo ha sido finalista del Premio Man Booker —distinción nunca antes conseguida por una primera novela— y se traducirá a veinte idiomas. Con nueve años de edad, Solimán em... continue
277.
The Slave Yards : A Novel by Najwa Bin Shatwan EN
Description:
Set in late nineteenth-century Benghazi, Najwa Bin Shatwan’s powerful novel tells the story of Atiqa, the daughter of a slave woman and her white master. We meet Atiqa as a grown woman, happily married with two children and working. When her cousin Ali unexpectedly enters her life, Atiqa learns the true identity of her parents, both long deceased, and slowly builds a friendship with Ali as they share stories of their past. We learn of Atiqa’s childhood, growing up in the “slave yards,” a makeshift encampment on the outskirts of Benghazi for Black Africans who were brought to Libya as slaves. A... continue
278.
Beyond the Rice Fields by Naivo EN
Country: Africa / 
Madagascar
Madagascar
Description:
The first novel from Madagascar ever to be translated into English, Naivo’s magisterial Beyond the Rice Fields delves into the upheavals of the nation’s precolonial past through the twin narratives of a slave and his master’s daughter. Fara and her father’s slave, Tsito, have shared a tender intimacy since her father bought the young boy who’d been ripped away from his family after their forest village was destroyed. Now in Sahasoa, amongst the cattle and rice fields, everything is new for Tsito, and Fara at last has a companion to play with. But as Tsito looks forward toward the bright promis... continue
279.
Return to the Enchanted Island by Johary Ravaloson EN
Country: Africa / Madagascar
Madagascar
Description:
In this exhilarating prize-winning novel--only the second to be published in English from Madagascar--a young man comes of age amidst the enchanted origin myths of his island country. Named after the first man at the creation of the world in Malagasy mythology, Ietsy Razak was raised to perpetuate the glory of his namesake and expected to be as illuminated as his Great Ancestor. But in the chaos of modernity, his young life is marked only by restlessness, maddening insomnia, and an adolescent apathy. When an unexpected tragedy ships him off to a boarding school in France, his trip to the big c... continue