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BostonPL_Contemporary Voices, African Nations

In a continent as ethnically and culturally diverse as Africa, it comes as no surprise that the literature that has emerged from there is as equally diverse and multifaceted. Dealing with a range of social and cultural issues, these selections are worthy of praise and attention. Check one out today and enjoy!

Boston Public Library

11 items

  • Based on true events, this story of courage, forgiveness, love, and freedom in pre-colonial Ghana is told through the eyes of two women born to vastly different fates.
    UnknownNew York : Other Press, [2019]
  • Follows ten-year-old Zimbabwe native, Darling, as she escapes the closed schools and paramil-itary police control of her homeland in search of opportunity and freedom with an aunt in America.
    BookNew York : Reagan Arthur Books, 2013. — FICTION BULAWAYO N
  • Separated by differing ambitions after falling in love in occupied Nigeria, beautiful Ifemelu experiences triumph and defeat in America, while Obinze endures an undocumented status in London until the pair is reunited in their homeland…
    BookNew York : Anchor Books, a division of Random House LLC, 2014.
  • Set in Sierra Leone after the civil war, Benjamin and Bockarie return to their village of Imperi, only to find the town in ruins. But as more villagers return, the two friends must pull together and help the community rebuild.
    BookNew York : Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014. — Beah, I.
  • In his latest novel, in which an African escaping to America cannot leave his past behind, Mengestu portrays the intersection of cultures experienced by the immigrant with startling awareness.
    BookNew York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2014. — Mengestu, D.
  • Two half-sisters are born in eighteenth-century Ghana. One marries a British colonial and raises educated children while the other becomes an American slave and later migrates to Harlem. Neither one knows that the other exists...
    BookNew York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2016.
  • South African Omotoso makes her U.S. debut with this tale of two prickly octogenarians---two women, one black and one white---who discover after 20 years of exchanging digs and insults that they could actually help each other.
    BookNew York : Picador, [2017]. — FICTION OMOTOSO Y
  • In this debut, French singer/rapper Faye transforms his own background into an impressive, searing coming-of-age novel about a Burundian family's implosion during the 1990s.
    BookLondon ; New York : Hogarth, [2018]. — Faye, G.
  • Couto's excellent novel, the first in a trilogy, chronicles the territorial power struggles of 1890s southern Mozambique, alternating between the voices of Imani, a 15-year-old living in the village of Nkokolani, and Portuguese sergeant…
    BookNew York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. — FICTION COUTO M
  • Set in Zimbabwe at the end of the 20th century, Dangarembga's heartbreaking and piercing latest follows Tambudzai---the protagonist of her novels "Nervous Conditions" and "The Book of Not"---as she wearily approaches middle age.
    BookMinneapolis, Minnesota : Graywolf Press, [2018]
  • Following the death of renowned surgeon Kweku Sai in Ghana, his estranged children travel from around the globe to bury him. In the course of these journeys, the events that splintered them are recounted even as new family bonds develop.
    BookNew York : Penguin Press, 2013. — FICTION SELASI T