The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver – DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Historical novel set in Britannia AD61 (East Anglia)
Ten Great Books set in AFRICA
3rd September 2023
Ten Great Books set in Africa. Africa is a diverse and vibrant continent that spans 54 countries. It is known for its rich cultural heritage, breathtaking landscapes, and abundant wildlife. It is home to the world’s largest desert, the Sahara, and the renowned Victoria Falls.
Here are ten of our favourite books set on the continent
The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi – NIGERIA
They burned down the market on the day Vivek Oji died. One afternoon, in a town in southeastern Nigeria, a mother opens her front door to discover the lifeless body of her son wrapped in fabric on the welcome mat. The story of that child, Vivek Oji, is the story of two families from disparate cultures who came together in a time of upheaval, and of Vivek’s struggle to be true to a self whose spirit and longings defy conventional expectations. Raised by a privileged, distant father and an understanding but overprotective mother, Vivek suffers disorienting blackouts, fugue states that disrupt all connection between self and surroundings. As adolescence gives way to adulthood, Vivek finds solace in friendships with the warm, boisterous daughters of the Nigerwives, foreign-born women resettled in the area. But Vivek’s closest bond is with Osita, the worldly, high-spirited cousin whose teasing confidence masks a guarded private life. As their relationship deepens–and Osita struggles to understand his friend’s escalating crisis–the mystery of Vivek’s behavior gives way to a heart-stopping act of violence in a moment of transcendent freedom. Propulsively readable, teeming with vivid and unforgettable characters, The Death of Vivek Oji is a story of family and friendship that challenges expectations at every turn. It is a major step forward from a writer of rare insight into the porous barriers between body and identity, spirit, and self.
The White Masai by Corinne Hofmann – KENYA
At once a hopelessly romantic love story, a gripping adventure yarn and a fine piece of social anthropology, White Masai is a compulsive read. Whilst on holiday Corinne Hoffman fell in love with a Masai warrior. After overcoming all sorts of obstacles she moved into a tiny shack with him and his mother and spent four years in Kenya. Slowly but surely, the dream began to crumble. She eventually fled back home with her baby daughter. From wild animals through starvation to ritual mutilation, this is a book steeped in humanity and one that tells a fascinating tale.
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith – BOTSWANA
Wayward daughters. Missing Husbands. Philandering partners. Curious conmen. If you’ve got a problem, and no one else can help you, then pay a visit to Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s only – and finest – female private detective.
Her methods may not be conventional, and her manner not exactly Miss Marple, but she’s got warmth, wit and canny intuition on her side, not to mention Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, the charming proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. And Precious is going to need them all as she sets out on the trail of a missing child, a case that tumbles our heroine into a hotbed of strange situations and more than a little danger . . .
Delightfully different, THE NO.1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY offers a captivating glimpse of an unusual world.
Cobra by Deon Meyer – SOUTH AFRICA
Why would a mathematics professor from Cambridge University, renting a holiday home outside Cape Town, require a false identity and three bodyguards? And where is he, now that they are dead? The only clue to the bodyguards’ murder is the snake engraved on the shell casings of the bullets that killed them.
Investigating the massacre, Benny Griessel and his team find themselves being drawn into an international conspiracy with shocking implications. It seems it is not just the terrorists and criminals of Britain and South Africa who may fear the Professor’s work, but the politicians too.
As the body count begins to spiral viciously, Benny must put his new-found love life aside and focus on finding the one person who could give him a break in the case: a teenage pickpocket on the run in the city. But Benny is not the only person hunting for Tyrone Kleinbooi . . .
Relentlessly suspenseful, topical, hard-hitting and richly rewarding, COBRA is a superb novel from an author who is acclaimed around the world as a brilliant voice in crime fiction.
A Long Way from Douala by Max Lobe – CAMEROON
On the trail of Roger, a brother who has gone north in search of football fame in Europe, Choupi, the narrator, takes with him the older Simon, a neighborhood friend. The bus trip north nearly ends in disaster when, at a pit stop, Simon goes wandering in search of grilled caterpillars. At the police station in Yaounde, the local cop tells them that a feckless boza who wants to go to Europe is not worth police effort and their mother should go and pleasure the police chief if she wants help! Through a series of joyful sparky vignettes, Cameroon life is revealed in all its ups and downs. Issues of life and death are raised but the tone remains light and edgy.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver – DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Nathan, a Baptist preacher, has come to spread the Word in a remote village reachable only by airplane. To say that he and his family are woefully unprepared would be an understatement: “We came from Bethlehem, Georgia, bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle,” says Leah, one of Nathan’s four daughters. But of course it isn’t long before they discover that the tremendous humidity has rendered the mixes unusable, their clothes are unsuitable and they’ve arrived in the middle of political upheaval as the Congolese seek to wrest independence from Belgium. In addition to poisonous snakes, dangerous animals, and the hostility of the villagers to Nathan’s fiery take-no-prisoners brand of Christianity, there are also rebels in the jungle and the threat of war in the air. Could things get any worse? In fact they can and they do. The first part of The Poisonwood Bible revolves around Nathan’s intransigent, bullying personality and his effect on both his family and on the village they have come to. As political instability grows in the Congo, so does the local witch doctor’s animus toward the Prices, and both seem to converge with tragic consequences about halfway through the novel. From that point on, the family is dispersed and the novel follows each member’s fortunes across a span of more than 30 years.
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – BIAFRA/NIGERIA
The story of Biafra’s struggle to establish an independent nation.
Winner of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2007, this is a heartbreaking, exquisitely written literary masterpiece. Now a major film starring Thandie Newton and Chiwetel Ejiofor, due for release in 2014
In 1960s Nigeria, Ugwu, a boy from a poor village, goes to work for Odenigbo, a radical university professor. Soon they are joined by Olanna, a young woman who has abandoned a life of privilege to live with her charismatic lover. Into their world comes Richard, an English writer, who has fallen for Olanna’s sharp-tongued sister Kainene. But when the shocking horror of civil war engulfs the nation, their loves and loyalties are severely tested, while their lives pull apart and collide once again in ways none of them could have imagined…
Crossbones by Nuruddin Farah – SOMALIA
The last book in the Past Imperfect trilogy. A dozen years after his last visit, Jeebleh returns to his beloved Mogadiscio to see old friends. He is accompanied by his son-in-law, Malik, a journalist intent on covering the region’s ongoing turmoil. What greets them at first is not the chaos Jeebleh remembers, however, but an eerie calm enforced by ubiquitous white-robed figures bearing whips. Meanwhile, Malik’s brother, Ahl, has arrived in Puntland, the region notorious as a pirates’ base. Ahl is searching for his stepson, Taxliil, who has vanished from Minneapolis, apparently recruited by an imam allied to Somalia’s rising religious insurgency. The brothers’ efforts draw them closer to Taxliil and deeper into the fabric of the country, even as Somalis brace themselves for an Ethiopian invasion. Jeebleh leaves Mogadiscio only a few hours before the borders are breached and raids descend from land and sea. As the uneasy quiet shatters and the city turns into a battle zone, the brothers experience firsthand the derailments of war.
We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan – UGANDA
‘You can’t stop birds from flying, can you, Sameer? They go where they will…’
1960s UGANDA. Hasan is struggling to run his family business following the sudden death of his wife. Just as he begins to see a way forward, a new regime seizes power, and a wave of rising prejudice threatens to sweep away everything he has built.
Present-day LONDON. Sameer, a young high-flying lawyer, senses an emptiness in what he thought was the life of his dreams. Called back to his family home by an unexpected tragedy, Sameer begins to find the missing pieces of himself not in his future plans, but in a past he never knew.
After the Rains by Emily Barroso – ZIMBABWE
After the Rains is an adventurous, dramatic coming of age novel set in post-colonial Rhodesia that parallels the coming of age of fictional Jayne Cameron with that of post-colonial Rhodesia as it morphs into the free Zimbabwe. This is an intimate novel, told in the first person, of a young, spirited girl. It is set against a vast backdrop of the upheaval and tragedy of an African war, in which a girl battles to make sense of her life during the complexities of her time. The novel has universal appeal with its themes of land, loss, longing and redemption and the ability of the human spirit to overcome great odds. After the Rains This is a powerful, gripping read that is ultimately redemptive for Jayne, written by an author whose own early life was affected by similar themes. Emily Barroso has been compared to writers such as Alexandra Fuller (Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight).
Enjoy our selection of books set in Africa! There are almost 1,400 in the TripFiction database.
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And there is “Don’t Let Us Go to the Dogs Tonight” as well as “Cocktails under the Tree of Forgetfulness” by Andrea Fuller.