Best African Literature Books
Here you will get Best African Literature Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. Things Fall Apart
Author: by Chinua Achebe
English
209 pages
0385474547
A true classic of world literature … A masterpiece that has inspired generations of writers in Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world. Barack Obama Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American ReadThings Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Chinua Achebe’s critically acclaimed African Trilogy.
It is a classic narrative about Africa’s cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man’s futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political andreligious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order.
With more than 20 million copies sold and translated into fifty-seven languages, Things Fall Apart provides one of the most illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary realities.
2. Americanah
Author: by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
0307455920
Anchor (March 4, 2014)
English
From the award-winning, bestselling author of We Should All Be Feminists and Half of a Yellow Sunthe story of two Nigerians making their way in the U.S. And the UK, raising universal questions of race, belonging, the overseas experience for the African diaspora, and the search for identity and a home.
Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time.
Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passionfor each other and for their homeland.
3. Who Fears Death: Modern Fantasy Classic soon to be an HBO series with George RR. Martin as executive producer
Author: by Nnedi Okorafor
B0776NTZYM
March 22, 2018
English
An award-winning literary author enters the world of magical realism with her World Fantasy Award-winning novel of a remarkable woman in post-apocalyptic Africa. Now optioned as a TV series for HBO, with executive producer George R.R.Martin! In a post-apocalyptic Africa, the world has changed in many ways; yet in one region genocide between tribes still bloodies the land.
A woman who has survived the annihilation of her village and a terrible rape by an enemy general wanders into the desert, hoping to die. Instead, she gives birth to an angry baby girl with hair and skin the colour of sand.
Gripped by the certainty that her daughter is different special she names her Onyesonwu, which means Who fears death?’ in an ancient language. It doesn’t take long for Onye to understand that she is physically and socially marked by the circumstances of her conception.
She is Ewu a child of rape who is expected to live a life of violence, a half-breed rejected by her community. But Onye is not the average Ewu. Even as a child, she manifests the beginnings of a remarkable and unique magic.
4. Cry, the Beloved Country
Author: by Alan Paton
Scribner Book Company
English
316 pages
The greatest novel to emerge out of the tragedy of South Africa, and one of the best novels of our time. The New Republic A beautiful novelits writing is so fresh, its projection of character so immediate and full, its events so compelling, and its understanding so compassionate that to read the book is to share intimately, even to the point of catharsis, in the grave human experience.
The New York TimesAn Oprah Book Club selection, Cry, the Beloved Country, was an immediate worldwide bestseller when it was published in 1948. Alan Paton’s impassioned novel about a black man’s country under white man’s law is a work of searing beauty.
Cry, the Beloved Country, is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son, Absalom, set against the background of a land and a people riven by racial injustice. Remarkable for its lyricism, unforgettable for character and incident, Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man.
5. Half of a Yellow Sun
Author: by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Anchor (September 4, 2007)
English
543 pages
From the award-winning, bestselling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feministsa haunting story of love and war Recipient of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Winner of Winners awardWith effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s.
We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene.
Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war.
6. The Thing Around Your Neck
Author: by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
English
240 pages
0307455912
A dazzling story collection from the award-winning, bestselling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists In these twelve riveting stories, the award-winning Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explores the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States.
Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, these stories map, with Adichie’s signature emotional wisdom, the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them.
7. His Only Wife
Author: by Peace Adzo Medie
English
288 pages
1616209151
A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR A Time Magazine Must-Read Book of 2020 One of BuzzFeed’s “29 Books We Couldn’t Put Down This Year” A Must-Read Novel: The New York Times Book Review * BuzzFeed * Marie Claire * Parade * Travel + Leisure * Ms. Magazine * Bustle * The Millions * Book Riot * Christian Science Monitor * HelloGiggles [A] mesmerizing debut novel.
The New York Times Book Review A story that kept me tied to the page, told in masterful, seamless prose. BuzzFeed I love this book so much I turned the pages so fast … It’s all about the search for independence and being true to yourself and who you really are.
Reese Witherspoon Afi Tekple is a young seamstress in Ghana. She is smart; she is pretty; and she has been convinced by her mother to marry a man she does not know. Afi knows who he is, of courseElikem is a wealthy businessman whose mother has chosen Afi in the hopes that she will distract him from his relationship with a woman his family claims is inappropriate.
8. The Bible is Black History
Author: by Dr. Theron D. Williams
B08N9KKVCZ
English
158 pages
We live in an age when younger African-American Christians are asking tough questions that previous generations would dare not ask. This generation doesn’t hesitate to question the validity of the Scriptures, the efficacy of the church, and even the historicity of Jesus.
Young people are becoming increasingly curious about what role, if any, did people of African descent play in biblical history? Or, if the Bible is devoid of Black presence, and is merely a book by Europeans, about Europeans and for Europeans to the exclusion of other races and ethnicities?Dr. Theron D.
Williams makes a significant contribution to this conversation by answering the difficult questions this generation fearlessly poses. Dr. Williams uses facts from the Bible, well-respected historians, scientists, and DNA evidence to prove that Black people comprised the biblical Israelite community.
He also shares historical images from the ancient catacombs that vividly depict the true likeness of the biblical Israelites. This book does not change the biblical text, but it will change how you understand it. This edition provides updated information and further elucidation of key concepts.
9. The Moor's Account
Author: by Laila Lalami
Vintage
English
336 pages
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST*NOMINATED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE*WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD*A New York Times Notable BookA Wall Street Journal Top 10 Book of the YearAn NPR Great Read of 2014A Kirkus Best Fiction Book of the Year In these pages, Laila Lalami brings us the imagined memoirs of the first black explorer of America: Mustafa al-Zamori, called Estebanico.
The slave of a Spanish conquistador, Estebanico sails for the Americas with his master, Dorantes, as part of a danger-laden expedition to Florida. Within a year, Estebanico is one of only four crew members to survive. As he journeys across America with his Spanish companions, the Old World roles of slave and master fall away, and Estebanico remakes himself as an equal, a healer, and a remarkable storyteller.
His tale illuminates the ways in which our narratives can transmigrate into historyand how storytelling can offer a chance at redemption and survival.
10. The Fishermen: A Novel
Author: by Chigozie Obioma
B00MEMMTD8
April 14, 2015
English
A striking debut novel about an unforgettable childhood, by a Nigerian writer the New York Times has crowned “the heir to Chinua Achebe.” Told by nine-year-old Benjamin, the youngest of four brothers, The Fishermen is the Cain and Abel-esque story of a childhood in Nigeria, in the small town of Akure.
When their father has to travel to a distant city for work, the brothers take advantage of his absence to skip school and go fishing. At the forbidden nearby river, they meet a madman who persuades the oldest of the boys that he is destined to be killed by one of his siblings.
What happens next is an almost mythic event whose impact-both tragic and redemptive-will transcend the lives and imaginations of the book’s characters and readers. Dazzling and viscerally powerful, The Fisherman is an essential novel about Africa, seen through the prism of one family’s destiny.
11. As A Black Man Thinketh: A Guide to Self-Empowerment and Black Excellence
Author: by Reggie Whittaker
English
69 pages
1980925712
As The Black Man Thinketh will change the way you view yourself as a Black Man, how you interact with the world, and will act as your guide to the new blueprint of self- empowerment, love, and understanding, for the most capable human on earth- The Black Man.
Reggie Whittaker takes an in depth look into the psychological warfare plaguing African American men not only in America, but all around the world. Using real-life experiences and lessons, along with a dash of accountability, Whittaker openly speaks to the Black Man challenging him to take a stance, discover his inner strength, peace, live a life of service, and contribute to the prosperity and reclamation of African American culture.
12. Stay with Me: A novel
Author: by Ayobami Adebayo
Vintage
English
272 pages
Powerfully magnetic…. In the lineage of great works by Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie…. A thoroughly contemporaryand deeply movingportrait of a marriage. The New York Times Book Review Ilesa, Nigeria. Ever since they first met and fell in love at university, Yejide and Akin have agreed: polygamy is not for them.
But four years into their marriageafter consulting fertility doctors and healers, and trying strange teas and unlikely curesYejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has timeuntil her in-laws arrive on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin’s second wife.
Furious, shocked, and livid with jealousy, Yejide knows the only way to save her marriage is to get pregnant. Which, finally, she doesbut at a cost far greater than she could have dared to imagine. The unforgettable story of a marriage as seen through the eyes of both husband and wife, Stay With Me asks how much we can sacrifice for the sake of family.
A New York Times Notable BookOne of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Chicago Tribune, BuzzFeed, Entertainment Weekly, The New York Post, Southern Living, The SkimmA 2017 BEA Buzz Panel SelectionA Belletrist Book-of-the-MonthA Sarah Jessica Parker Book Club Selection Shortlisted for the 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize and the 9mobile Prize for LiteratureLonglisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize
13. No Longer at Ease
Author: by Chinua Achebe
Penguin Books
English
194 pages
A magical writerone of the greatest of the twentieth century. Margaret Atwood African literature is incomplete and unthinkable without the works of Chinua Achebe. Toni MorrisonA classic story of moral struggle in an age of turbulent social change and the final book in Chinua Achebe’s The African TrilogyWhen Obi Okonkwo, grandson of Okonkwo, the main character in Things Fall Apart returns to Nigeria from England in the 1950s, his foreign education separates him from his African roots.
No Longer at Ease, the third and concluding novel in Chinua Achebe’s The African Trilogy, depicts the uncertainties that beset the nation of Nigeria, as independence from colonial rule loomed near. In Obi Okonkwo’s experiences, the ambiguities, pitfalls, and temptations of a rapidly evolving society are revealed.
He is part of a ruling Nigerian elite whose corruption he finds repugnant. His fate, however, overtakes him as he finds himself trapped between the expectation of his family, his villageboth representations of the traditional world of his ancestorsand the colonial world.
14. Season of Migration to the North (New York Review Books Classics)
Author: by Tayeb Salih
NYRB Classics
English
139 pages
After years of study in Europe, the young narrator of Season of Migration to the North returns to his village along the Nile in the Sudan. It is the 1960s, and he is eager to make a contribution to the new postcolonial life of his country.
Back home, he discovers a stranger among the familiar faces of childhoodthe enigmatic Mustafa Sa’eed. Mustafa takes the young man into his confidence, telling him the story of his own years in London, of his brilliant career as an economist, and of the series of fraught and deadly relationships with European women that led to a terrible public reckoning and his return to his native land.
But what is the meaning of Mustafa’s shocking confession? Mustafa disappears without explanation, leaving the young manwhom he has asked to look after his wifein an unsettled and violent no-man’s-land between Europe and Africa, tradition and innovation, holiness and defilement, and man and woman, from which no one will escape unaltered or unharmed.
Season of Migration to the North is a rich and sensual work of deep honesty and incandescent lyricism. In 2001 it was selected by a panel of Arab writers and critics as the most important Arab novel of the twentieth century.
15. Favorite African Folktales
Author: by Nelson Mandela
English
240 pages
0393326241
Favorite African Folktales is a cause for celebration, landmark work that gathers in one volume many of Africa’s most cherished folktales. Mandela, a Nobel Laureate for Peace, has selected these thirty-two tales with the specific hope that Africa’s oldest stories, as well as a few new ones, be perpetuated by future generations and be appreciated by children throughout the world.
In these “beloved stories, morsels rich with the gritty essence of Africa,” we meet, among many others, a Kenyan lion named Simba, a snake with seven heads and a trickster from Zulu folklore; we hear the voices of the scheming hyena and learn from a Khoi fable how animals acquired their tails and horns.
Several creation myths tell us how the land, its animals, and its people all came into existence under a punishing sun or against the backdrop of a spectacularly beautiful mountain landscape. Whether warning children about the dangers of disobedience or demonstrating that the underdog can-and often does-win, these stories, through their depiction of wise animals as well as evil monsters, are “universal in their portrayal of humanity, beasts, and the mystical.” What is particularly exciting about this book is that many of the stories, in their oral form, are almost as old as Africa itself.
16. Arrow of God
Author: by Chinua Achebe
Penguin Books
English
230 pages
“My favorite novel.” Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieA magical writerone of the greatest of the twentieth century. Margaret Atwood African literature is incomplete and unthinkable without the works of Chinua Achebe. Toni Morrison The second novel in Chinua Achebe’s masterful African trilogy, following Things Fall Apart and preceding No Longer at Ease When Things Fall Apart ends, colonial rule has been introduced to Umuofia, and the character of the nation, its values, freedoms, religious and socio-political foundations have substantially and irrevocably been altered.
Arrow of God, the second novel in Chinua Achebe’s The African Trilogy, moves the historical narrative forward. This time, the action revolves around Ezeulu, the headstrong chief priest of the god Ulu, which is worshipped by the six villages of Umuaro.
The novel is a meditation on the nature, uses, and responsibility of power and leadership. Ezeulu finds that his authority is increasingly under threat from rivals within his nation and functionaries of the newly established British colonial government. Yet he sees himself as untouchable.
