|
Author |
Country |
Title |
Review |
|
Abnudi, `Abd al-Rahman |
Egypt |
Al-Mawt `Ala Al-Asfalt |
|
|
Achebe, Chinua
|
Nigeria |
Arrow Of God
Click Here to buy |
An
intense drama which presents the character of Ezeulu, the patron deity of an
Igbo village, whose authority is challenged first by the colonial powers,
then his own people and finally his family. Here, in his third novel, Achebe
presents a careful study of the effects of power and of its loss.
'As in Achebe's other
novels, it is the strong-willed man of tradition who cannot adapt, and who
is crushed by virtues in the war between the new, more worldly order, and
the old conservative values of an isolated society.' Gerald Moore in Seven
African Writers.
|
|
Achebe, Chinua
|
Nigeria |
Things Fall Apart
Click Here to buy
|
Enormously successful novel, which has sold over 8 million copies since it
was first published in 1958. It traces the life of Okonkwo, a great man in
traditional Igbo society, whose world is defined by the values and
institutions of his cultural community.
Written as the century
of British rule was coming to an end, it throws into sharp relief
conflicting forces: from history, forces from Okonkwo's own character, and
influences from uncompromising tradition. These hurtle the story to its
tragic ending. Available in several different editions.
|
|
Aidoo,
Ama Ata
|
Ghana |
Dilema Of A Ghost / Anowa
Click Here to buy |
Two
dramatic plays which explore the tensions between western culture and
traditional African society. In Dilemma of a Ghost, Ato returns from
University in the United States with a sophisticated new wife.
The author explores the
unstable foundations of their marriage and the fault lines between genders.
In Anowa, a young woman defies her parents and marries the man she loves.
However, when she assess their long life together, she realises that
something vital is missing.
|
|
Almeida, Germano
|
Cape
Verde |
O
Testamento Do Sr. Napumoceno Da Silva Araújo
Click Here to buy |
The
fictional memoir of a Cape Verdean merchant concerned about hypocrisy.
Portuguese text. |
|
Armah, Ayi Kwei |
Ghana |
The Beautyful Ones Are Not
Yet Born
Click Here to buy |
This first novel is set
during the last days of Nkrumah, it tells the story of a railway freight
clerk and his struggle against corruption which will infect both his family
and his country. |
|
Ba,Amadou
Hampate |
Mali |
L'étrange Destin De
Wangrin
The Fortunes of Wangrin
|
New edition of a classic
treatment of the impact of the colonial system on local populations during
French rule in West Africa. Wnagrin is a rogue, hustling both the colonial
French and his own people in stories drawn from traditional oral sources.
This novel tells the story of
Wagrin, a Malian character who from a young age is coupled with the Deity of
mischief and cunning. His adventures take him to the pinnacle of power and
fortune until he displeases the Gods. |
|
Mariama Ba
|
Senegal |
**Une Si Longue Letter
So Long a Letter
|
Ba's novels explore tensions
between the different social realities existing in West Africa. Within this
short novel, her first, she explores the condition of women in Africa and
the disregard of their experiences. Set in the form of letters between two
friends,
Ba's
lyrical prose reveals the pain of her character, whose husband, in a
deliberate betrayal of trust, took another wife - an action sanctioned by
society but out of touch with modern realities and relationships.
|
|
Tahar Ben Jelloun |
Morocco |
La Nuit Sacrée
The Sacred Night
 |
Winner of the 1987 Prix Goncourt. A searing allegorical portrait
of North African society, using arabic tales and surrealist elements to
craft a powerful and disturbing vision of protest and rebellion against the
strictures of hidebound traditions governing gender roles and sexuality.
English text. |
|
Mongo Beti |
Cameroon |
Le Pauvre Christ De Bomba
The Poor Christ of Bomba
 |
A novel that explores the
problems of introducing Christianity into Africa and its confrontation with
the indigenous religions of Cameroon. Beti satirises the missionary movement
through the travels of a French priest during the 1930s related by his
African cook, in the form of her journal. 219pp, UK. |
|
Andre Brink
|
South Africa |
A Dry White Season
 |
South African essayist,
playwright and novelist, this book is a meditation on the ways ordinary
people become politicised in repressive States.
It is the story of Ben du Toit,
whose investigations into his friends death causes him to become an outsider
in his own community, in conflict with the apartheid system. |
|
Ken Bugul |
Senegal |
Riwan, Ou Le Chemin De
Sable |
Travel across a desert, reconsidering realities and traditions:
life, death, polygamy, alienation, and seduction. Text in French. |
|
Syl Cheney-Coker |
Sierra Leone |
The Last Harmattan Of
Alusine Dunbar
|
|
|
Driss Chraibi |
Morocco |
Passe Simple
The Simple Past
 |
Published as Morocco was fighting for its independence from
France in 1954, it caused shockwaves in both countries, for his poetic
expression of the drama inherent in the conflict of civilisations and his
treatment of themes such as identity, the condition of women, and the weight
of Islam in North Africa. French text. |
|
J. M. Coetzee
|
South
Africa |
Life and Times of Michael K
|
Coetzee's work introduces the
concept of ethics into post-modern literature and questions concepts of
authorship and power.
In this
book he tells the story of one of the many inarticulate victims of
Apartheid. A young gardener who, alarmed by the escalation of the war,
decides to takes his mother away from the violence. However, events overtake
him and he must fight with the only resources he has. |
|
Mia Couto |
Mozambique |
**Terra
sonâmbula
 |
et in the context of the anti-colonial war this is the acclaimed
debut novel from the Mozambican writer. Originally published in 1992. IN
PORTUGUESE. |
|
Craveirinha, José |
Mozambique |
Karingana Ua Karingana |
|
|
Bernard Binlin Dadié
|
Côte
d'Ivoire |
Climbié |
|
|
Tsitsi Dangarembga
|
Zimbabwe |
**Nervous
Conditions
 |
Dangaremba's fictional work
encompasses the themes of exile, the impact of the West and power through
her carefully crafted characters.
In this book her main
character, Tamba, thinks her dreams have come true when her wealthy and
educated uncle offers to sponsor her education. But mission school carries a
heavy price. |
|
Mohammed Dib,
|
Algeria |
La Grande Maison
L'incendie,
Le Métier À Tisser |
La grande maison,
A novel
exploring how one can be free. An Algerian looks forward from colonialism
towards a new future? First novel in a trilogy. Text in French.
L'incendie
Second in the
trilogy. The main character, Omar, has begun a new life in a village in the
highland of Algeria. He becomes embroiled in strikes by agricultural workers
and a country in turmoil. This is Dib's testament to the Algerian peasantry.
Text in French.
Le
métier à tisser
Third novel in
the trilogy which tells the story of Omar, a young Algerian who watches as
his community is slowly crushed by labour and hunger as the Second World War
approaches. French text, 203pp, FRANCE. |
Birago Diop
|
Senegal |
Los Cuentos De Amadou Koumba
Tales of Amadou Koumba |
This collection of folktales captures the beliefs and philosophy
of the cultures of Mali and
Senegal through animal fables and stories. Text in French. Preface by L
Senghor, |
|
Boubacar Boris Diop
|
Senegal |
Murambi Ou Le Livre Des
Ossements |
A Senegalese writer considers horrific events in Rwanda: through
the lives of childhood friends, he explores the fragility and potential for
brutality of human beings |
|
Assia Djebar
|
Algeria |
**L'amour, La Fantasia
Fantasia
 |
A novel sliding easily from the past - the French occupation of Algiers
towards the present-changing relations between peoples. |
|
Buchi Emecheta
|
Nigeria |
Joys of Motherhood
 |
Born to Igbo parents in
Nigeria, Emecheta has lived for over twenty years in Britain. Her work is
marked by the tension between the traditional and the modern in women's
lives and their role as mothers and carers.
The ironically titled Joys of
Motherhood is Emecheta's indictment of a society which demands the
continuing fertility of its women. Her main character Nnu Ego's whole
destiny is centred around her children and her role as a mother, but she's
continually disappointed as her identity is eroded, leaving her defined by
her ability to bear children. 224pp, UK. |
|
Daniel Orowole Fagunwa |
Nigeria |
Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmale
Forest of a Thousand Daemons |
This book contains
a very interesting story and adventure of a West African Hunter in a
dreadful forest, who eventually found the secret of lasting happiness and
peace of mind. The author is Daniel Fagunwa. Wole Soyinka, a Nobelist
translated the story. This book had 140 pages of jam-packed action.
The reader is easily swept away by many adventure of the heroic hunter in
this book. The story is captivating, and emotion-ladden, and by the time the
reader hit page 20, you wont feel like dropping the book until you finish
reading it. |
|
Nuruddin Farah |
Somalia |
Maps:
A Novel
|
Somalia's best known writer:
Born in Somalia in 1945 into a nomadic tradition and educated in India and
the UK.
Combining oral traditions with
Somalian poetic devices, his novels are strikingly lyrical. This is Farah's
sixth novel and is set during Ogaden War of 1977. It evokes thestruggles
between personal, ethnic and national identities through the characters of
Askar and his adopted mother, Misra, an Oromo from Ethiopia. |
|
Athol Fugard
|
South Africa |
Blood Knot: A Play In Seven Scenes |
First performed in 1961, this
early Fugard play explores the South African obsession with race, drawing on
experience of family and society in Port Elizabeth. |
|
Gamal Al-Ghitani, |
Egypt
|
Zayni Barakat
 |
This novel is set in Egypt
in the 1500s but reads almost as commentary on the poverty stricken, corrupt
and divided greater Cairo as it was in the 1950s, under General Nasser.
Translated into French by J.-F. Fourcade. 319pp, in French, FRANCE (Author
name rendered as Gamal Ghitany on this edition.) |
|
Nadine Gordimer |
South Africa |
Burger's Daughter
 |
Nadine Gordimer was born in
1923 to Jewish parents in Johannesburg. Her work spans the entire period of
Apartheid and she has consistently fought these political forces of
separation in her fiction. Her creative work is rooted in the European and
Russian novel form, but with consistently African themes. Winner of the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991
In this novel Gordimer has
created a character - the daughter of an anti-Apartheid activist - who
embodies the uncertainty of existence in South Africa. 3 |
|
Bessie Head
|
South Africa |
A Question of Power
 |
Novelist and short story
writer, Head's work has been characterised by her turbulent early life. Born
to a white mother and a black father in Pietermaritzberg in 1937, she grew
up in foster care and in an Anglican orphanage. She left South Africa during
the 1960s, after the break up of her marriage, and was declared a refugee in
Botswana. Despite her unsettled existence there, her literary life is in
Botswana. All her novels have autobiographical aspects but 'A Question of
Power' is conspicuously based on her own experiences.
The main character, Elisabeth,
suffers a mental breakdown having left South Africa for Botswana. The
narrative is based on the characters internal experiences and decent into
madness. This is set against the ordinary action of a village in Botswana. |
|
Luis Bernardo Honwana
|
Mozambique |
Nos Matamos O Cão Tinhoso
We Killed Mangy Dog and Other Stories: & Other Stories
 |
A collection of short stories
by the Mozambican writer, documentary film maker and photographer. He
exposes the racism inherent in the Portuguese colonial government through
the lives of his characters expressed in poetic and vernacular language. |
|
Chenjerai Hove, |
Zimbabwe |
Bones
 |
Poet, novelist and editor,
Hove's fiction expresses the experience of the liberation war in Zimbabwe
and its impact on the Shona.
A prose poem, Bones explores
the role that woman have played in the liberation of the country and the
betrayals of its people by the nationalist government through the story of
Marita, a farm labourer on a white farm. |
|
Moses Isegawa
|
Uganda |
Abessijnse Kronieken
Abyssinian Chronicles
|
Born in Kampala in 1963,
Isegawa's life and fiction has been characterised by his experience of Idi
Amin's murderous regime.
This, his acclaimed first
novel, has an impressive cast of characters who embody the humour, richness
and the tragedy of life in Uganda |
|
Jordan, Archibald Campbell |
South
Africa |
Ingqumbo Yeminyanya |
|
|
Elsa Joubert
|
South Africa |
Die Swerdjare Van
Poppie Nongena |
|
|
Cheikh Hamidou Kane |
Senegal |
L'aventure Ambiguë
Ambiguous Adventure
|
Kane has received wide acclaim
for his first novel which tells the story of a young Muslim boy who is sent
to the French school to learn secrets of the white man's power.
Through his fiction, he
grapples with the philosophical dimensions of the colonial encounter and the
centrality of Islam in Senegalese culture. |
|
Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa
|
Mozambique |
Ualalapi |
Disturbing account of the tyrannical rule of Ngungunhane,
hitherto celebrated for his resistance to the Portuguese, and the Nguni
warrior who killed the king's brother. Text in Portuguese. |
|
Ahmadou Kourouma |
Côte
d'Ivoire |
Les Soleils Des Independences/
The Suns of Independence
 |
Published
in Montreal in 1968 after French publishers rejected it, this first novel by
the Cote D'Ivoirian novelist received fierce criticism for the way he used
the French language to express Malinke imagery and speech rhythms, showing
more fully the way his characters think.
Kourouma
examines the psychological consequences of traditional African culture and
that of the colonist colliding through the characters of Fama, a Dumbuya
prince trying to make his mark within the new hierarchy, and Salimata, his
wife struggling with her own past and vision of the future. |
|
Camara Laye, |
Guinea |
L'enfant Noir
The Dark Child
: The
Autobiography Of An African Boy
|
Autobiographical story of Camara Laye's life growing up in Guinea, which
he wrote whilst in France. He relates the religious rituals and traditions
of his community and creates a lasting impression of a people. Translated
from the French Eva Thoby-Marcelin. |
|
Sindiwe Magona
|
South Africa |
Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night
|
A collection of short stories which bring the full range of South
African women's experience brilliantly to light |
|
Naguib Mahfouz |
Egypt |
**The
Cairo Trilogy
:
Palace Walk, Palace Of Desire, Sugar Street
|
Born in 1911 in Cairo,
Mahfouz's prolific career chronicling the lives of ordinary Egyptians has
had him credited with the creation of the modern Arabic novel. His work has
been marked by long silences provoked by revolution and uncertainty in his
country but despite intimidation and an assassination attempt, Mahfouz
continues to write with elegance and sensitivity about the poor, the
oppressed and questions of faith and spirituality.
The Cairo Trilogy, his most
famous work, is an epic of storytelling. It traces the lives of three
generations of a Cairo family. The lives of the characters are interwoven
with the turmoil of the Twentieth Century. Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1988 |
|
Dambudzo Marechera
|
Zimbabwe |
The House of Hunger
 |
Born in 1952 in Zimbabwe,
poet, playwright and novelist, Marechera's short, turbulent life is echoed
through his work.
Realist and experimental, this
is a collection of nine short stories which expresses Marechera's alienation
with his Shona roots, the brutality of the townships and the Rhodesian
government. Influenced by and compared to the European tradition of
Modernist writers, he has been outspoken and controversial about issues of
language and nationalism and has been criticised for choosing to write in
English. |
|
Thomas Mofolo
|
Lesotho |
**Chaka
 |
The story of a Zulu warrior presented as a study of human
passion, of an uncontrolled and then uncontrollable ambition leading to the
moral destruction of the character and the inevitable punishment |
|
Monenembo, Tierno |
Guinea |
Un Attieké Pour Elgass |
|
|
Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa
|
South
Africa |
Indaba, My Children
 |
Without
the infromation in this classic one has no claim to knowledge about Africa
and her people.
Credo Mutwa is 'the real deal', and his outpouring of African history flows
in the oral tradition to take the reader on a journey of discovery. The book
contains incredible facts and insights, sure to alter old perceptions. This
book has value for those interested in history, anthropology and archeology,
shamanism, sociology, psychology, language, politics and mythology -If you
feel any doubt about reading this book -Simply get it and read it. |
|
Ngugi wa Thiong'o |
Kenya |
Caitaani Mutharaba-Ini
Devil on the Cross
|
Ngugu was in prison as he
wrote this book, written on sheets of toilet paper and carefully hidden
within his cell. The weaving of fantasy and realism create a scathing
critique of modern Kenyan society and the alienation of the people from
their land. |
|
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
|
Kenya |
**A
Grain of Wheat
 |
Set in Kenya during
the last days of British rule in 1963, Ngugi uses the characters to
establish the racial, social and moral issues which would mark Kenya during
its post-colonial years. He shows the roots of the forces which would pit
Kenyan against Kenyan. |
|
D. T. Niane |
Senegal |
Soundjata Ou L'épopée
Mandingue
SUNDIATA: An Epic Of Old Mali
|
An epic, which ranges from the Atlantic to
Timbutu. Griots have kept alive this tale of ancient heroes |
|
C. L. Sibusiso Nyembezi
|
South Africa |
Inkinnsela
Yasemgungundlovu / The VIP Of Pietermaritzburg
|
Written in Zulu, and first
published in 1961, this novel tells of the rotten life of someone who adopts
a 'white' lifestyle in Apartheid South Africa, and of criminal exploits in a
country district. 3rd edition with new orthography |
|
Christopher Okigbo
|
Nigeria |
Labyrinths With Path of Thunder |
|
|
Ben Okri
|
Nigeria |
The Famished Road
|
This novel is magical
adventure set in the turbulent world of Azaro, a spirit child who journeys
through life with a constant reminder of the spirit world he has left
behind.
Okri was born in 1959 in Minna
in Nigeria, which he soon left with his family and only returned at the age
of seven. African mythology, especially that of the Yoruba, are deeply woven
into his creative work and form the basis of his poetic prose. |
|
Ferdinand Oyono |
Cameroon |
Le\Vieux Negre et la Medaille
The Old Man and the Medal
|
In this book Oyono uses his character Meka, who is about to
receive a medal from the colonial government for long service, to satirise
the system which the medal represents. |
|
Alan Paton |
South Africa |
Cry, the Beloved Country
|
South African novelist and academic, Paton's reputation was
established with this book, published in 1948. It tells the story of the
Rev. Stephen Kumalo, who leaves his village in Natal to search
for his disappeared son in Johannesburg. There he finds both the intense
degradation and despair of the city and active resistance to white laws. |
|
Okot P'Bitek
|
Uganda |
Song of Lawino & Song of Ocol
 |
A lament sung by a woman whose
husband has rejected village life and taken a new wife who speaks English,
powders her face and is skinny like European women. It is a lament for the
rejection of the deeply-rooted traditions of their ancestors and the
superficial materialism of Western values.
It is followed by the Song of
Ocol, her husbands response. Its terse verse belies the frustration he feels
at the outdated values of his society. Illustrated with b/w drawings |
|
Pepetela |
Angola |
A Geração Da Utopia |
Based around Benguela in Angola, 'The
Generation From Utopia' expresses the disillusionment that comes with the
independence. In Portuguese. |
|
Nawal El Saadawi, |
Egypt |
Woman at Point Zero
|
n this book El Saadawi recounts the life of a woman called
Firdaus who was imprisoned and later executed for the murder of a pimp in a
Cairo street. The power of the novel comes from its simplicity of form and
her direct, almost clipped style stemming from her long work in fighting
religious and colonial oppression of women. |
|
Al-Tayyib Salih |
Sudan |
Season of Migration to the North
|
Salih's fiction assesses the impact of the colonial encounter on
the physical and psychological self through his characters who embody
different values of assimilation and resistance. 169pp, UK. |
|
Williams Sassine
|
Guinea |
Le jeune homme de sable |
Youth revolts: against arbitrary power, paternal betrayal,
violence and egoism. |
|
Sembene Ousmane
|
Senegal |
Les Bouts De Bois De Dieu
God's Bits of Wood
|
In this book Ousmane draws on
his experiences during the 1947-8 strike on the Dakar-Niger railway and
draws a sweeping, historical narrative which encompasses the tragedy of
pre-independence years. |
|
Leopold Sedar Senghor
|
Senegal |
**Euvre
Poetique
COLLECTED POETRY
 |
Dual language volume brings together the poetic works of one of Africa's
most significant and important literary voices, Senghor's achievement has
been in successfully using the French language to express African imagery,
metaphor and thought. English and French text, 598pp, USA. |
|
Mongane Wally Serote
|
South Africa |
Third World Express |
A new edition of these two longer poems combined in a short
volume. |
|
Shabaan,
Robert Bin |
Tanzania |
Utenzi Wa Vita Vya Uhuru |
|
|
Sony Labou Tansi |
Congo |
La Vie Et Demie |
Stories of a mythical country with a bloody, yet absurd
dictatorial regime. |
|
Aminata Sow Fall |
Senegal |
La Grève Des Battus
Beggar's Strike |
A denunciation of tyranny, in
the author's own country perhaps, or maybe elsewhere? A mayor tries to get
rid of the street beggars from the town... but the beggars are organised!
166pp, French text.
|
|
Wole Soyinka
|
Nigeria |
Death and the Kings Horseman
|
Playwright and novelist,
Soyinka has worked on experimental and political forms of theatre both in
the UK and in Nigeria. Choosing to write in English to reach a wider
audience both abroad and in multi-lingual Nigeria, his work was gently
satirical of society as he perceived it. As his career has progressed,
however, he has become increasingly outspoken against corruption and
political oppression and was imprisoned for twenty-two months in 1967 for is
sympathy for Biafra. In 1986, Wole Soyinka became the first African to win
the Nobel Prize for Literature.
In this play, published in
1975, Soyinka plots a character whose only destiny in life is to commit
ritual suicide at the King's death and lead his horses to the land of the
ancestors. The intervention of a British colonial officer jeopardises the
precarious balance of cultures. |
|
Tchicaya U Tam'si |
Congo |
Le mauvais sang ; suivi de Feu de brousse ; et, A triche |
The author's three first poetry collections
collected in one volume. French text, |
|
Amos Tutuola
|
Nigeria |
The Palm-Wine Drinkard
 |
A controversial character in
African Literature, Amos Tutuola explores the written medium to express
Yoruba folktales and methods of storytelling. Despite being celebrated by
figures such as Dylan Thomas, Tutuola's use of pidgin English has provoked
criticism in his own country, Nigeria.
This short tale, published in
1952, recounts the mythological story of a drunken man who follows his dead
Palm wine tapster into a world of supernatural beings. |
|
Yvonne Vera |
Zimbabwe |
Butterfly Burning
 |
A story set in Makokoba in the
1940s by one of Africa's leading women novelists. It captures the
bitter-sweet flavour of township life. |
|
Vieira, José Luandino |
Angola |
Nós Os Do Makulusu |
|
|
B. Wallet Vilakazi
|
South Africa |
Amal'ezulu |
|
|
Kateb Yacine |
Algeria |
Nedjma
|
Tale of unrequited love that
can be read as an allegory of Algeria's history. Originally published in
French in 1956, this novel weaves the lives of the characters and their
ancestors within the long, tumultuous history of the region. |
Other Categories
- Creative/ Fiction
Non-fiction/academic
Children's
|
