Read Around Africa Challenge

Read at least one book by an author from each country in Africa.

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Best books from Africa (893)
361.

Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Africa / Kenya flag Kenya
Description:
Informed by traditional African storytelling, discover Ngugi wa Thiong'o's masterpiece. To honour the Ruler's birthday, the Free Republic of Aburiria set out to build a tower; a modern wonder of the world that will reach the gates of Heaven. But behind this pillar of unity a battle for control of the Aburirian people rages. Among the contenders: the eponymous Wizard, an avatar of folklore and wisdom; the corrupt Christian Ministry; and the nefarious Global Bank. 'Mythological but also cheerfully disenchanted; political and playful; cartoonish but also epical... the African novel may well have ... continue

362.

Things They Lost by Okwiri Oduor EN

0 Ratings
Country: Africa / Kenya flag Kenya
Description:
Named a Most Anticipated Book by Vogue and Vulture “Alternately whimsical, sweet, and dark,” this astonishing debut novel about a lonely girl waiting for her mother “brim[s] with uncompromisingly African magical realism” (The New York Times). Ayosa is a wandering spirit—joyous, exuberant, filled to the brim with longing. Her only companions in her grandmother’s crumbling house are as lonely as Ayosa herself: the ghostly Fatumas, whose eyes are the size of bay windows, who teach her to dance and wail at the death news; the Jolly-Annas, cruel birds who cover their solitude with spiteful laughter... continue

363.

Birth of a Dream Weaver : A Writer's Awakening by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o EN

0 Ratings
Country: Africa / Kenya flag Kenya
Description:
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

364.

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

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Country: Africa / Kenya flag Kenya
Description:
A groundbreaking memoir by the acclaimed Kenyan Caine Prize winner.

365.

Something Torn and New : An African Renaissance by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o EN

0 Ratings
Country: Africa / Kenya flag Kenya
Description:
Novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o has been a force in African literature for decades: Since the 1970s, when he gave up the English language to commit himself to writing in African languages, his foremost concern has been the critical importance of language toc

366.

Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris EN

0 Ratings
Country: Africa / Kenya flag Kenya
Description:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A shining portrait of a presciently modern political genius maneuvering in a gilded age of wealth, optimism, excess and American global ascension.”—San Francisco Chronicle WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY • “[Theodore Rex] is one of the great histories of the American presidency, worthy of being on a shelf alongside Henry Adams’s volumes on Jefferson and Madison.”—Times Literary Supplement Theodore Rex is the story—never fully told before—of Theodore Roosevelt’s two world-changing terms as President of the United States. A hundred years befo... continue

367.

Dreams in a Time of War : A Childhood Memoir by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o EN

Rating: 4 (3 votes)
Country: Africa / Kenya flag Kenya
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.


369.

Unbowed: A Memoir by Wangari Maathai EN

Rating: 4 (2 votes)
Country: Africa / Kenya flag Kenya
Description:
Born in a rural Kenyan village in 1940, Wangari Maathai was already an iconoclast as a child, determined to get an education even though most African girls then were uneducated.

370.

Devil on the Cross by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Africa / Kenya flag Kenya
Description:
This remarkable and symbolic novel centers on Wariinga's tragedy and uses it to tell a story of contemporary Kenya.
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