Conquest of PagesBooks by African authors: a reading list by country
Africa’s literature is written in Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Swahili, Amharic, Yoruba, Zulu and many more languages, and a great deal of it reaches English readers through translation. Novels of independence and its aftermath, family sagas, oral storytelling set down on the page, crime fiction and a thriving wave of contemporary writers all share the shelf. Reading across the continent means reading across very different countries, not one “African” voice.
How to use this list
Africa has 54 countries in the read-around-the-world challenge. Below is one well-loved book by an author born in 24 of them — a place to start, not a verdict. If you are new to the region, a short novel from a country you know little about is a gentler start than a famous epic. Many of these authors have several books; once one lands, the rest of their work is the natural next step.
A book to start with, country by country
| Country | A place to start |
|---|---|
| Algeria | The Stranger — Albert Camus |
| Angola | A General Theory of Oblivion — José Eduardo Agualusa |
| Cameroon | Behold the Dreamers — Imbolo Mbue |
| Republic of the Congo | Broken Glass — Alain Mabanckou |
| DR Congo | Tram 83 — Fiston Mwanza Mujila |
| Côte d’Ivoire | The Suns of Independence — Ahmadou Kourouma |
| Egypt | Palace Walk — Naguib Mahfouz |
| Ethiopia | The Shadow King — Maaza Mengiste |
| Ghana | Homegoing — Yaa Gyasi |
| Guinea | The Dark Child — Camara Laye |
| Kenya | A Grain of Wheat — Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o |
| Libya | The Bleeding of the Stone — Ibrahim al-Koni |
| Mali | The Fortunes of Wangrin — Amadou Hampâté Bâ |
| Mauritius | Eve out of Her Ruins — Ananda Devi |
| Morocco | The Sand Child — Tahar Ben Jelloun |
| Mozambique | Sleepwalking Land — Mia Couto |
| Nigeria | Things Fall Apart — Chinua Achebe |
| Senegal | So Long a Letter — Mariama Bâ |
| Somalia | Maps — Nuruddin Farah |
| South Africa | Disgrace — J. M. Coetzee |
| Sudan | Season of Migration to the North — Tayeb Salih |
| Tanzania | Paradise — Abdulrazak Gurnah |
| Tunisia | The Pillar of Salt — Albert Memmi |
| Zimbabwe | Nervous Conditions — Tsitsi Dangarembga |
Your pick
No single obvious starting point for these — any author born in the country counts. Search a library catalogue for “literature of” the country, or look at its national prize winners.
- Benin
- Botswana
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Cabo Verde
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Comoros
- Djibouti
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Eswatini
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Guinea-Bissau
- Lesotho
- Liberia
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Mauritania
- Namibia
- Niger
- Rwanda
- São Tomé and Príncipe
- Seychelles
- Sierra Leone
- South Sudan
- Togo
- Uganda
- Zambia
Keep going
Other regions: Asia · Europe · North America · South America · Oceania. The whole challenge is explained on Read around the world.
In Conquest of Pages each book you finish plants a forest where its author was born, so a list like this one turns into a map you can watch fill in. It is free, and your library stays on your device.