Books from Kenya
40 popular kenyan books
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
The target of the Read Around The World Challenge is to read at least one book written by an author from each and every country in the world.
All books that are listed here as part of the "Read Around Africa Challenge" were written by authors from Kenya.
Find a great book for the next part of your reading journey around the world from this book list. The following popular books have been recommended so far.
21.
The Challenge for Africa by Wangari Maathai EN
Description:
In this groundbreaking work, the Nobel Peace Prize-winner and founder of the Green Belt Movement offers a new perspective on the troubles facing Africa today. Too often these challenges are portrayed by the media in extreme terms connoting poverty, dependence, and desperation. Wangari Maathai, the author of Unbowed, sees things differently, and here she argues for a moral revolution among Africans themselves. Illuminating the complex and dynamic nature of the continent, Maathai offers “hardheaded hope” and “realistic options” for change and improvement. She deftly describes what Africans can a... continue
22.
The Dragonfly Sea by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor EN
Description:
When a contingent of cultural emissaries from China invite Ayaana abroad, she embarks on a dramatic ship's journey to the Far East, where she will make friends and enemies; and, at last, find understanding where she least expects it
23.
The Girls in the Wild Fig Tree: How I Fought to Save Myself, My Sister, and Thousands of Girls Worldwide by Nice Leng'ete EN
Description:
An "elegant and inspiring memoir" by the human rights activist who changed the minds of her elders, reformed traditions from the inside, and is creating a better future for girls and women throughout Africa (Sonia Faleiro, New York Times). Nice Leng`ete was raised in a Maasai village in Kenya. In 1998, when Nice was six, her parents fell sick and died, and Nice and her sister Soila were taken in by their father’s brother, who had little interest in the girls beyond what their dowries might fetch. Fearing “the cut” (female genital mutilation, a painful and sometimes deadly ritualistic surgery),... continue
24.
The House of Rust : A Novel by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber EN
Description:
The first Graywolf Press Africa Prize winner, a story of a girl’s fantastical sea voyage to rescue her father The House of Rust is an enchanting novel about a Hadrami girl in Mombasa. When her fisherman father goes missing, Aisha takes to the sea on a magical boat made of a skeleton to rescue him. She is guided by a talking scholar’s cat (and soon crows, goats, and other animals all have their say, too). On this journey Aisha meets three terrifying sea monsters. After she survives a final confrontation with Baba wa Papa, the father of all sharks, she rescues her own father, and hopes that life... continue
25.
The Magic of Saida by M. G. Vassanji EN
Description:
The Magic of Saida tells the haunting story of Kamal, a successful Canadian doctor who, in middle age and after decades in North America, decides to return to his homeland of East Africa to find his childhood sweetheart, Saida. Kamal's journey is motivated by a combination of guilt, hope, and the desire to unravel the mysteries of his childhood--mysteries compounded by the fact that Kamal is the son of an absent Indian father from a well-to-do family and a Swahili African mother of slave ancestry. Through a series of flashbacks, we watch Kamal's early years in the ancient coastal town of Kilwa... continue
26.
The Man Who Walked on Water : A Novel by Jacob Beaver EN
Description:
A trip to Appalachia to investigate a religious "miracle" becomes a transformational spiritual journey for one unsuspecting Londoner in this modern tale that touches on the mysterious questions in our lives—a poignant, wry novel infused with the humor and warm skepticism of Nick Hornby’s How to Be Good. Dumped, depressed, and bored with his dead-end job, Londoner John Mallory decides to shake up his life. He accepts his journalist brother’s offer to help him on a documentary film investigating a pastor in rural Tennessee who claims he can walk on water. Locals are convinced it’s the Lord’s wor... continue
27.
The Perfect Nine : The Epic of Gikuyu and Mumbi by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o EN
Description:
A dazzling, genre-defying novel in verse from the author Delia Owens says “tackles the absurdities, injustices, and corruption of a continent” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s novels and memoirs have received glowing praise from the likes of President Barack Obama, the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, and NPR; he has been a finalist for the Man International Booker Prize and is annually tipped to win the Nobel Prize for Literature; and his books have sold tens of thousands of copies around the world. In his first attempt at the epic form, Ngũgĩ tells the story of the founding of th... continue
28.
The Promised Land by Grace Ogot EN
Description:
A young farmer and his wife who have migrated to Tanzania from Kenya become embroiled in issues of personal jealousy and materialism, and a melodramatic tale of tribal hatreds ensues. The novel explores Ogot's concept of the ideal African wife: obedient and submissive to her husband; family and community orientated; and committed to non-materialist goals. The style is distinctively ironic giving the story power and relevance. Grace Ogot has been employed in diverse occupations as a novelist, short story writer, scriptwriter, politician, and representative to the UN. Some of her other works inc... continue
29.
The River Between by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o EN
Description:
The River Between explores life on the Makuyu and Kameno ridges of Kenya in the early days of white settlement. Faced with an alluring, new religion and 'magical' customs, the Gikuyu people are torn between those who fear the unknown and those who see beyond it. Some follow Joshua and his fiery brand of Christianity while others proudly pursue tribal independence. In the midst of this disunity stands Waiyaki, a dedicated visionary born to a line of prophets. He struggles to educate the tribe - a task he sees as the only unifying link between the two factions - but his plans for the f... continue
30.
The Strange Bride by Grace Ogot EN
Description:
An interpretation of a Luo myth. The people of GotOwaga lead a placid, almost idyllic, life-style until the glamorous and mysterious Nyawir suddenly appears from an unknown world.