Read Around Africa Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Africa.
Best books from Africa (620)
321.
Blue Bay Palace by Nathacha Appanah-Mouriquand EN
MauritiusDescription:
Exposing the extremes of life in a developing country, this novel of doomed love shows how poverty, class divisions, and ramshackle housing become even harder to bear when luxurious resorts and rich tourists arrive on the scene. Growing up on the island of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, lonely young Maya hopes that someday she might escape her poverty and find happiness in the desirable housing developments near the new hotels. When she falls in love with a man from a well-to-do family, she believes that her dream is within reach, but her hopes are shattered when her lover is too weak to defy... continue
323.
Riambel by Priya Hein EN
Description:
Fifteen-year-old Noemi has no choice but to leave school and work in the house of the wealthy De Grandbourg family. Just across the road from the slums where she grew up, she encounters a world that is starkly different from her own - yet one which would have been all too familiar to her ancestors. Bewitched by a pair of green eyes and haunted by echoes, her life begins to mirror those of girls who have gone before her. Within Noemi's lament is also the herstory of Mauritius; the story of women who have resisted arrest, of teachers who care for their poorest pupils and encourage them to challe... continue
324.
Black Spartacus : The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh EN
Description:
A biography of the Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture.
325.
Description:
"Set in Mauritius during the uprising following the death of the Mauritian musician Kaya, Kaya Days tells the story of a young woman's daylong search for her younger brother who has gone missing"--
326.
El cielo sobre el tejado by Nathacha Appanah ES
Description:
Flavie Philipon, Elle Lobo tiene diecisiete años y está siendo trasladado en un furgón de policía a un centro penitenciario para menores por haber provocado un accidente de tráfico: cogió el coche de su madre y condujo durante horas sin tener carnet para reencontrarse con Paloma, su hermana mayor, a la que hace más de diez años que no ve. Cuando se aproximaba a su destino, Lobo se puso nervioso, entró por una calle de sentido contrario y chocó contra otro coche, hiriendo a dos personas. El relato emotivo de ese proyecto de r... continue
327.
Silence of the Chagos by Shenaz Patel EN
Description:
Based on a true, still-unfolding story, Silence of the Chagos is a powerful exploration of cultural identity, the concept of home, and above all the neverending desire for justice. Shenaz Patel draws on the lives of exiled Chagossians in this tragic example of 20th century political oppression. Every afternoon a woman in a red headscarf walks to the end of the quay and looks out over the water, fixing her gaze “back there”: to Diego Garcia, one of the small islands forming the Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean. With no explanation, no forewarning, and only an hour to pack their belongings... continue
328.
The Happy Marriage by Tahar Ben Jelloun EN
MoroccoDescription:
The story of one couple - first from the husband's point of view, then from the wife's. The husband, a painter in Casablanca, has been paralyzed by a stroke at the very height of his career and becomes convinced that his marriage is the reason for his decline. Walled up within his illness and desperate to break free of a deeply destructive relationship, he finds escape in writing a secret book about his hellish marriage. When his wife finds it, she responds point by point with her own version of the facts, offering her own striking and incisive reinterpretation of their story.
329.
This Blinding Absence of Light by Tahar Ben Jelloun EN
Description:
Ben Jelloun crafts a horrific real-life narrative into fiction to tell the appalling story of the desert concentration camps in which King Hassan II of Morocco held his political enemies under the most harrowing conditions.
330.
Leaving Tangier by Jelloun, Tahar Ben EN
Description:
In his new novel, author Tahar Ben Jelloun tells the story of a Moroccan brother and sister making new lives for themselves in Spain. Azel is a young man in Tangier who dreams of crossing the Strait of Gibraltar. When he meets Miguel, a wealthy Spaniard, he leaves behind his girlfriend, his sister, Kenza, and his mother, and moves with him to Barcelona, where Kenza eventually joins them. What they find there forms the heart of this novel of seduction and betrayal, deception and disillusionment, in which Azel and Kenza are reminded powerfully not only of where they've come from, but also of who... continue