In our latest book recommendation, we take you on a journey across Africa to highlight books by women from all corners of the continent. These books have broken boundaries and contributed significantly to the growth of African storytelling.
I read a book by a Cameroonian author for the first time in 2024. As someone with a background in African history, this is not an easy admission. But on the other hand, it marks a moment of growth and intentionality in my reading. While compiling this list has been a passion project, it has also reinforced how much work remains in documenting stories by African women. For instance, it was only in 2001 that the first woman from Chad published a book—Marie-Christine Koundja’s Al-Istifakh, ou, L’idylle de mes Amis. Similarly, Dina Salústio’s The Madwoman of Serrano became the first novel by a female author to be published in Cape Verde (1998) and the first to be translated into English (2019).
The 54 books in this recommendation span genres—from fiction and poetry to memoir and historical accounts—offering intimate and often underexplored stories of African life across different time periods and social realities. Assia Djebar’s Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, for example, gives voice to Algerian women navigating the postcolonial era, while Deolinda Rodrigues’ Diário de um Exílio sem Regresso (Angola) provides a firsthand account of exile and sacrifice in the struggle for independence.
Some of these books have also received international acclaim. Ghana’s Yaa Gyasi made a remarkable debut with Homegoing, a multigenerational novel tracing the lasting impact of the transatlantic slave trade. Beyond their literary achievements, these authors tackle pressing social issues—from gender inequality and war to migration and environmental crises. For instance, Angèle Rawiri’s The Fury and Cries of Women (Gabon) interrogates the cultural expectations placed on women, while Mouna-Hodan Ahmed’s Les Enfants du Khat (Djibouti) sheds light on the societal impact of khat consumption.
Ultimately, this collection is a tribute to the storytelling traditions of African women across eras. It honours the trailblazers who paved the way for future generations of women writers and celebrates contemporary voices keeping the fires aflame.
Here are 54 books by women from each of Africa’s 54 countries.
Country: Algeria
AUTHOR: ASSIA DJEBAR
TITLE: women of algiers In their apartment
publication date: 1980
genre: fiction
This collection of short stories examines the lives of women in Algeria across pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial periods. First published in 1980, the book portrays the struggles of Algerian women who, after shedding the shackles of colonialism, find themselves subjected to a postcolonial regime that subjugates them even as it celebrates the liberation of men. Criticized in Algeria for its political stance, Djebar’s book sold out its initial print run of 15,000 copies in France and gained significant popularity in Italy. Her stories explore the seclusion of women, the consequences of silence, the link between language and oppression, and the effects of war on both women and men.
Country: angola
AUTHOR: DEOLINDA RODRIGUES
title: DIÁRIO DE UM EXILIO SEM REGRESSO
publication date: 2003
Genre: non-fiction
Diário de um Exílio sem Regresso (Diary of an Exile Without Return) is a book based on the writings of Deolinda Rodrigues, an Angolan nationalist, poet, and fighter for independence. The book is a collection of her diary entries, letters, and notes, providing a deeply personal account of her experiences in exile, her commitment to Angola’s liberation struggle, and the sacrifices she made for the cause.
Country: benin
author: AGNÈS AGBOTON
title: voice of the two shores
publication date: 2021
Genre: poetry
Drawn from Agnès Agboton’s two Spanish collections, Voice of the Two Shores was originally written in Gun, a language of Benin. Many of the poems are anchored in Benin, while others grapple with the loss of living testimonies to its world and traditions. Yet, they are infused with love—love for the poet’s beloved and for the land of her birth, which is (re)born within her. The result is a deeply emotional collection, where ancient traditions run deep, poems pulsating with intimacy, nostalgia for her homeland after years in exile in Spain, and an undercurrent of dismay at unbearable realities.
Country: botswana
author: gothataone moenh
title: call and response
publication date: 2023
Genre: fiction
This collection contains richly drawn stories about the lives of ordinary families in contemporary Botswana as they navigate relationships, tradition and caretaking in a rapidly changing world.
In this book, a young widow adheres to the expectations of wearing mourning clothes for nearly a year, though she is unsure what the traditions mean or whether she is ready to meet the world without their protection. An older sister returns home from a confusing time in America, only to explain at every turn why she has left the land of opportunity. A younger sister hides her sexual exploits from her family, while her older brother openly flaunts his infidelity.
The stories collected in Call and Response are anchored in place—in the village of Serowe, where the author is from, and in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana—charting the emotional journeys of women seeking love and opportunity beyond the barriers of custom and circumstance.
Country: burkina faso
author: monique ilboudo
title: so distant from My life
publication date: 2022
Genre: fiction
Jeanphi, a young man from the fictional West African city Ouabany, has one obsession that will determine the fate of his life—migration. He scrapes together money to take the illegal route across the Sahara, making it as far as Morocco before being repatriated. Increasingly desperate, Jeanphi meets an elegant French widower who for his part is despairing at the insurmountable bureaucratic hurdles for his charitable endeavour in Jeanphi’s country. A window opens to opportunity—but it will also bring tragedy. Burkinabé author Monique Ilboudo’s novel offers a compelling and complex portrait of migration. Ilboudo is the first Burkinabè woman to publish a novel.
Country: burundi
author: esther kamatari
title: princess of the rugo
publication date: 2001
Genre: non-fictionadichie
Born into Burundi’s royal family, Esther Kamatari narrates her journey from a privileged upbringing to becoming a refugee and later a pioneering African model in Paris. The memoir explores her early life in Burundi, marked by her father’s assassination in 1964 and the subsequent abolition of the monarchy in 1966, events that led to her exile to France in 1970. In Paris, she broke barriers as one of the first African models to grace the European fashion scene. Beyond her modelling career, Kamatari became deeply involved in humanitarian efforts, particularly focusing on aiding orphans and advocating for peace in her homeland. The book offers insights into Burundi’s tumultuous history, the challenges of displacement, and the resilience required to navigate and bridge diverse cultural landscapes.
Country: cameroon
author: musih tedji xaviere
title: these letters end in tears
publication date: 2024
Genre: fiction
While chasing a rogue football, Fatima crosses paths with Bessem and the instant attraction between the two propels them into a life-changing romance. Despite an atmosphere of threat due to the criminalization of same-sex relationships in their home country of Cameroon, Fatima and Bessem persevere in living out their love. All seems to be going well, until one day tragedy strikes, and Fatima disappears.
Thirteen years later, Bessem is now a university professor, keeping her sexuality secret but bonding with her equally closeted friend Jamal and the queer community around her. But Fatima still haunts her. A chance encounter with people from her past pushes Bessem to finally go after the truth of her lover’s whereabouts. Told mostly through unsent letters, These Letters End in Tears, powerfully charts all the different ways that love, despite all odds, can persevere.
Country: cape verde
author: DINA SALÚSTIO
title: the mad womn of serano
publication date: 2019
Genre: fiction
Serrano is an isolated village where a madwoman roams. But is she really mad or is she marginalized because she is wise and a woman? Could her babbling be a prophecy? One day a girl falls from the sky and is found in the forest by Jeronimo. The villagers are suspicious of the newcomer, but Jeronimo falls in love with her. When she gives birth and disappears, Jeronimo takes care of the child, naming her Filipa. Years later, estranged from Jeronimo after being taken from the village in mysterious circumstances, Filipa is a successful businesswoman in the city. Her memories of growing up in Serrano and her friendship with the madwoman become increasingly vivid.
When the madwoman’s warnings come true and Serrano’s sheltered existence is threatened by plans to build a dam, Jeronimo heads for the city himself. Will he and Filipa finally be reunited? The first novel by a female author to be published in Cape Verde—and the first to be translated into English—The Madwoman of Serrano is a mesmerizing tale that intertwines rural ideals with urban ambition, all while exploring themes of female empowerment.
Country: central african rebulic (car)
Author: adrienne yabouza
title: co-wines, co-widows
publication date: 2015
Genre: fiction
At 49, Lidou is in his prime, a prosperous builder of houses in the Central African Republic and the proud husband of two beautiful wives, Ndongo Passy and Grekpoubou. The only cloud on his horizon is the recent onset of impotence, for which he persuades a pharmacist friend to get him some pills. The day after his first dose, Lidou has a heart attack and drops dead, which gives his opportunistic cousin Zouaboua the chance to accuse the two newly widowed women of poisoning Lidou, so that he can snatch his cousin’s property out from under their noses. If they’re going to keep what’s rightfully theirs, Ndongo Passy and Grekpoubou must fight with all their might against a backdrop of corruption in which bribery oils the wheels of society, eroding decency and loyalty.
Country: chad
author: marie-christinne koundja
title: al-istifakh, ou,l’idylle de mes amis
publication date: 2001
Genre: fiction
With the release of her debut novel, Al-Istifakh ou L’idylle de Mes Amis, in 2001, Koundja became the first woman in Chad’s history to be a published author. The novel follows two young people who choose to marry despite their parents’ refusal based on tribal and religious differences. Ending on a hopeful note, the couple builds a life together in France. Through their union, Koundja highlights the social challenges that have troubled Chadian society since 1979 and advocates for a culture of forgiveness.
Country: comoros
author: touhfat mouthare
title: the middle fire
publication date: 2022
Genre: fiction
Le Feu du Milieu (in English, The Middle Fire) is a novel by Comorian author Touhfat Mouhtare that intertwines elements of realism, fantasy, and spirituality to explore themes of friendship, self-discovery, and liberation. The story follows Gaillard, a young servant raised under the guidance of her master, who teaches her the Quran, and her adoptive mother, who shares ancestral legends from across the sea.
Gaillard’s life takes a transformative turn when she encounters Halima, a young woman of noble birth attempting to escape an arranged marriage. Their ensuing friendship leads Halima to entrust Gaillard with a mysterious object, instructing her to keep it hidden.
Country: democratic republic of the congo
author: sandra uwiringiymana
title: how dare the sun rise: memoirs of a war child
publication date: 2017
Genre: non-fiction
Sandra Uwiringiyimana was just ten years old when she found herself with a gun pointed at her head. The rebels had come at night—wielding weapons, torches, machetes. She watched as her mother and six-year-old sister were gunned down in a refugee camp, far from their home in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The rebels were killing people who weren’t from the same community, the same tribe. In other words, they were killing people simply for looking different.
Remarkably, the rebel didn’t pull the trigger, and Uwiringiyimana escaped into the night. Thus began a new life for her and her surviving family members. With no home and no money, they struggled to stay alive. Eventually, through a United Nations refugee program, they moved to America, only to face yet another ethnic disconnect. Uwiringiyimana may have crossed an ocean, but there is now a much wider divide she has to overcome. And it starts with middle school in New York. In this profoundly moving memoir, Uwiringiyimana tells the story of her survival, of finding her place in a new country, and of her hope for the future.
Country: republic of the congo
author: alima madina
title: the voice of a woman who hopes
publication date: 2014
Genre: fiction
This collection of five short stories traces the difficult journey of women in the quest for happiness. Sometimes it is the woman-mother who is presented in her joys, her sorrows, and her hopes; sometimes it is the girl or young woman who, faced with violence, finds herself torn between tradition and modernity, between love and hate; and sometimes it is women in general who face religious beliefs.
Country: Côte d’Ivoire
author: VÉRONIQUE TADJO
title: in the comapany of men
publication date: 2017
Genre: fiction
Two boys venture from their village to hunt in a nearby forest, where they shoot down bats with glee, and cook their prey over an open fire. Within a month, they are dead, bodies ravaged by an insidious disease that neither the local healer’s potions nor the medical team’s treatments could cure. Compounding the family’s grief, experts warn against touching the sick. But this caution comes too late: the virus spreads rapidly, and the boys’ father is barely able to send his eldest daughter away for a chance at survival.
In a series of moving snapshots, Véronique Tadjo illustrates the terrible extent of the Ebola epidemic, through the eyes of those affected in myriad ways: the doctor who tirelessly treats patients day after day in a sweltering tent, protected from the virus only by a plastic suit; the student who volunteers to work as a gravedigger while universities are closed, helping the teams overwhelmed by the sheer number of bodies; the grandmother who agrees to take in an orphaned boy cast out of his village for fear of infection. And watching over them all is the ancient and wise Baobab tree, mourning the dire state of the earth yet providing a sense of hope for the future. In the Company of Men explores critical questions about how we cope with a global crisis and how we can combat fear and prejudice.
Country: djibouti
Author: MOUNA-HODAN AHMED
title: les enfants du khat
publication date: 2016
Genre: fiction
This novel by Djiboutian author Mouna-Hodan Ahmed explores the impact of khat—a plant with stimulant properties widely consumed in the Horn of Africa—on the social fabric of Djibouti. Through its narrative, the novel delves into the lives of individuals and families affected by khat consumption, highlighting issues such as addiction, economic hardship, and societal challenges. By portraying these personal stories, Ahmed sheds light on the broader implications of khat use in Djiboutian society, offering readers a nuanced understanding of its cultural significance and the problems it engenders.
Country: egypt
Author: noor naga
title: if an egyptian cannot speak english
publication date: 2022
Genre: fiction
In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, an Egyptian-American woman and a man from the village of Shobrakheit meet at a café in Cairo. He was a photographer of the revolution, but now finds himself unemployed and addicted to cocaine, living in a rooftop shack. She is a nostalgic daughter of immigrants returning to a country she has never been to before, teaching English and living in a light-filled flat with balconies on all sides. They fall in love, and he moves in. But soon their desire—for one another, for the selves they want to become through the other—takes a violent turn that neither of them expected.
A dark romance exposing the gaps in American identity politics, especially when exported overseas, If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English is at once ravishing and wry, scathing and tender.
Country: equatorial guinea
author: Fiction trifonia melibea obono
title: la bastarda
publication date: 2016
Genre: fiction
The first novel by an Equatorial Guinean woman to be translated into English, La Bastarda is the story of the orphaned teen Okomo, who lives under the watchful eye of her grandmother and dreams of finding her father.
Forbidden from seeking him out, she enlists the help of other village outcasts: her gay uncle and a gang of ‘mysterious’ girls revelling in their so-called indecency. Drawn into their illicit trysts, Okomo finds herself falling in love with their leader and rebelling against the rigid norms of Fang culture.
Country: eritrea
author: hannah pool
title: my fathers’ daughter
publication date: 2005
Genre: memoir
In 1974 Hannah Pool was adopted from an orphanage in Eritrea and brought to England by her white adoptive father. She grew up unable to imagine what it must be like to look into the eyes of a blood relative until one day a letter arrives from a brother she never knew she had. Not knowing what to do with the letter, Pool hides it away. But she is unable to forget it, and ten years later she finally decides to track down her surviving Eritrean family, embarking on a journey that will take her far from the comfort zone of her metropolitan lifestyle to confront the poverty and oppression of a life that could so easily have been her own.
Country: eswatini
author: sarah mkhonza
title: weeding the flowerbeds
publication date: 2009
Genre: fiction
Weeding the Flowerbeds is a fictionalized memoir of boarding school at Manzini Nazarene High School in Eswatini (formerly called Swaziland) in the 1970s. In this book Mkhonza explores life in an educational institution where growing up takes place under strict hostel rules. As young Swazi girls Bulelo, Sisile and Makhosi grow up learning about life and Christianity, they learn to love school and to appreciate writing and literature. All the time they feel as if they are being pushed in a certain direction, and it is one of the teachers Mr Fields and others who come to the school and make them understand the importance of choosing to be free in one’s spirit. With all that education, they leave the school and go ahead to lead their lives.
Country: ethiopia
author: maaza mengiste
title: beneath the lion’s gaze
publication date: 2010
Genre: fiction
This memorable, heartbreaking story opens in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1974, on the eve of a revolution. Yonas kneels in his mother’s prayer room, pleading to his god for an end to the violence that has wracked his family and country. His father, Hailu, a prominent doctor, has been ordered to report to jail after helping a victim of state-sanctioned torture to die. And Dawit, Hailu’s youngest son, has joined an underground resistance movement—a choice that will lead to more upheaval and bloodshed across a ravaged Ethiopia.
Beneath the Lion’s Gaze tells a gripping story of family, of the bonds of love and friendship set in a time and place that has rarely been explored in fiction. It is a story about the lengths human beings will go in pursuit of freedom and the human price of a national revolution.
Country: gabon
author: ANGÈLE RAWIRI
title: the fury and cries of women
publication date: 1989
Genre: fiction
Gabon’s first female novelist, Angèle Rawiri writes a gripping account of a modern woman, Emilienne, who questions traditional values and seeks emancipation from them. Emilienne’s active search for feminism on her own terms is tangled up with cultural expectations and taboos of motherhood, marriage, polygamy, divorce, and passion. She completes her university studies in Paris; marries a man from another ethnic group; becomes a leader in women’s liberation; enjoys professional success, even earning more than her husband; and eventually takes a female lover. Still, she remains unsatisfied. Those closest to her, and even she herself, constantly question her role as woman, wife, mother, and lover. The tragic death of her only child―her daughter Rékia―so accentuates Emilienne’s anguish, even more so because of her subsequent barrenness and the pressure, that she concedes to her husband’s taking a second wife. In her portrayal of one a woman’s life in Central Africa in the late 1980s, Rawiri prompts us to expand our awareness of the issues women face across the world today in the workforce and among family and peers.
Country: gambia
author: sally singhateh
title: the sun will soon shine
publication date: 2004
Genre: fiction
For an intelligent, ambitious girl growing up in a Gambian village, life holds few tempting prospects. Marriage and motherhood, often forced, are the paths assigned to most. Nyima, too, is subject to this fate, as well as having to endure the health-endangering ongoing practice of genital mutilation. But ours is a heroine with immense courage, able to see beyond her situation, despite the bleakness of life. She makes it through her darkest hours, and emerges stronger on the other side, though permanently scarred by her ordeals. It is in education and work that Nyima finds her salvation, and begins to rebuild her life, and indeed be reborn. The question, though is can she ever truly love or trust again? This is a moving and emphatic tale of a young woman’s struggle to come to terms with her past and culture, and, above all, the possibility of having a future to look forward to, no matter the odds.
Country: ghana
author: yaa gyasi
title: homegoing
publication date: 2016
Genre: fiction
Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in 18th-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle’s dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast’s booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of 20th-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing captures how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.
Country: guinea
author: kadiatou diallo
title: my heart will cross this ocean: my stroy, My son, amadou
publication date: 2009
Genre: non-fiction
Descended from West African kings and healers, raised in the turbulence of Guinea in the 1960s, Kadiatou Diallo was married off at the age of thirteen and bore her first child when she was sixteen. 23 years later, that child, Amadou Diallo, was gunned down without cause on the streets of New York City. Now Kadiatou Diallo tells the astonishing, inspiring story of her life, her loss, and the defiant strength she has always found within.
Country: guinea-bissau
author: yasmina nuny
title: anos ku ta manda
publication date: 2019
Genre: poetry
In her debut collection, Anos Ku Ta Manda, Yasmina Nuny writes both in English and Kriol, her mother tongue, to portray plural and untranslatable existences. Her collection begins with an exploration of her country Guinea-Bissau, that remains accessible through language and family. Nuny offers a more intimate reading of her musings and experiences of love and relationships. The final voice that we find in the collection is a political one, exploring both the trauma and joys of Black womanhood. Anos Ku Ta Manda is defiant.
Country: kenya
author: yvonne adhiambo owuor
title: dust
publication date: 2013
Genre: fiction
AccordingMoses Ebewesit Odidi Oganda has been gunned down on the streets of Nairobi by the police, and his sister, Ajany, and father, Nyipir, have brought him home to Wuoth Ogik—a place named Journey’s End—for burial. They are struggling to cope with their grief when an Englishman named Isaiah William Bolton makes a mysterious appearance and claims to be looking for Odidi. Isaiah and the Oganda family must come to terms not just with their loss but also with the piercing questions it resurrects. Only by breaking the silence that has bound them and naming their secrets can they finally find peace.
Set in a turbulent Kenya of the 1950s and 1960s, which was plagued by uprisings, assassinations, and genocide, Dust is a book that reaches back into history with a hand that does not let go. Owuor courageously plumbs the depths of the human heart. With stunning detail and lyricism, she paints a devastating portrait of a struggling country, its people, and its ghosts, while illuminating truths about the most universal of human experiences: love and loss.
Country: lesotho
author: mpho
title: singing away the hunger
publication date: 1996
Genre: non-fiction
A compelling and unique autobiography by an African woman with little formal education, less privilege and almost no experience of books or writing. Hers is a voice almost never heard in literature or history, a voice from within the struggle of ‘ordinary’ African women to negotiate a world which incorporates ancient pastoral ways and the congestion, brutality, and racist violence of city life.
Country: liberia
author: WAYÉTU MOORE
title: she would be king
publication date: 2018
Genre: fiction
Wayétu Moore’s powerful debut novel, She Would Be King, reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia’s early years through three unforgettable characters who share an uncommon bond. Gbessa, exiled from the West African village of Lai, is starved, bitten by a viper, and left for dead, but still she survives. June Dey, raised on a plantation in Virginia, hides his unusual strength until a confrontation with the overseer forces him to flee. Norman Aragon, the child of a white British colonizer and a Maroon slave from Jamaica, can fade from sight when the earth calls him. When the three meet in the settlement of Monrovia, their gifts help them salvage the tense relationship between the African American settlers and the indigenous tribes, as a new nation forms around them. Moore illuminates with radiant prose the tumultuous roots of a country inextricably bound to the United States.
Country: libya
author: najwa bin shatwan
title: the slave yards
publication date: 2016
Genre: fiction
Set in late nineteenth-century Benghazi, Najwa Bin Shatwan’s powerful novel tells the story of Atiqa, the daughter of a slave woman and her white master. We meet Atiqa as a grown woman, happily married with two children and working. When her cousin Ali unexpectedly enters her life, Atiqa learns the true identity of her parents, both long deceased, and slowly builds a friendship with Ali as they share stories of their past.
We learn of Atiqa’s childhood, growing up in the slave yards, a makeshift encampment on the outskirts of Benghazi for Black Africans who were brought to Libya as slaves. Ali narrates the tragic life of Atiqa’s mother, Tawida, a Black woman enslaved to a wealthy merchant family who finds herself the object of her master’s desires. Though such unions were common in slave-holding societies, their relationship intensifies as both come to care deeply for each other and share a bond that endures throughout their lives.
Shortlisted for the 2017 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, Bin Shatwan’s unforgettable novel offers a window into a dark chapter of Libyan history and illuminates the lives of women with great pathos and humanity.
Country: madagascar
author: MICHÈLE RAKOTOSON
title: ambatomanga
publication date: 2022
Genre: fiction
In her latest novel, Ambatomanga, Malagasy author Michèle Rakotoson looks back on the colonial war in Madagascar through the intersecting stories of two characters: Félicien Le Guen, a young Breton officer eager for adventure and Tavao, a young slave from Ambatomanga who decides to join the fight. Under a moist and scorching heat, over the throbbing crossing of forests and swamps infested with mosquitoes, resounds the cry of these young soldiers crushed in the vice of a nascent colonization.
Country: malawi
author: upile chisala
title: a fire like you
publication date: 2020
Genre: poetry
In this collection, Malawian poet Upile Chisala grapples with themes of love, loss, and desire. Throughout this book, her third, she explores her identity as a Black Malawian woman, offering intimate reflections on her life and experiences, imparting a stirring, universal message of empowerment and self-love. A fierce and lyrical collection of poetry celebrating the moments of triumph and beauty in our lives, as well as the moments of despair—recasting them as opportunities for growth.
Country: mali
author: ADAME BA KONARÉ
title: history, democracy, values: New Lines of reflections
publication date: 2008
Genre: non-fiction
At the 11th General Assembly of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, which was held in Maputo in December 2005, Adame Ba Konaré presented the Leopold Sedar Senghor Lecture, casting her historian eye on democracy and its values. Konaré calls for the enshrinement of democracy in Africa, where citizens are free to participate responsibly in decision-making on matters of common interest, and in ways that do not simply mimic externally induced notions or reflect unquestioningly the will of heads of state.
Country: mauritania
author: aichetou mint ahmedou
title: la couleur du vent (the colour of the wind)
publication date: 2017
genre: fiction
The Colour of the Wind is the story of a young teacher, Tala. She comes from a conservative background but has a modern mind. She has a love affair with a young man, Ahmed, which has lasted too long for her liking. Ahmed, who had promised to marry her, ends up being forced by his family to marry his little cousin, recently orphaned. She meets another man, Hassen. Just as she is about to marry Hassen, Ahmed divorces his wife. In this book, everyone leads their own life, with their share of joys, sorrows, ambitions, successes and disappointments.
Country: mauritius
author: priya hein
title: riambel
publication date: 2022
Genre: fiction
Fifteen-year-old Noemi has no choice but to leave school and work in the house of the wealthy De Grandbourg family. Just across the road from the slums where she grew up, she encounters a world that is starkly different from her own—yet one which would have been all too familiar to her ancestors. Bewitched by a pair of green eyes and haunted by echoes, her life begins to mirror those of girls who have gone before her.
Within Noemi’s lament is also the ‘herstory’ of Mauritius; the story of women who have resisted arrest, of teachers who care for their poorest pupils and encourage them to challenge traditional narratives, of a flawed Paradise undergoing slow but unstoppable change.
In Riambel, Priya Hein invites us to protest, to rail against longstanding structures of class and ethnicity. She shows us a world of natural enchantment contrasted with violence and the abuse of power. This seemingly simple tale of servitude, seduction and abandonment blisters with a fierce sense of injustice.
Country: morocco
author: laila lalami
title: the moor’s account
publication date: 2014
Genre: fiction
In this book, Moroccan-American novelist Laila Lalami brings us the invented memoirs of 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 history—and how storytelling can offer a chance at redemption and survival. The Moor’s Account was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist in 2015.
Country: mozambique
author: paulina chiziane
title: the joyful song of the partridge
publication date: 2024
Genre: fiction
No one knows where Maria des Dores came from. Did she ride in on the armoured spines of crocodiles, was she carried many miles in the jaws of fish? The only clear fact is that she is here, sitting naked in the river bordering a town where nothing ever happens. The townspeople murmur restlessly that she is possessed by perverse impulses. They interpret her arrival as an omen of crop failure or, in more hopeful tones, a sign that womankind will soon seize power from the greedy hands of men.
As The Joyful Cry of the Partridge unfolds, Paulina Chiziane spirals back in time to Maria’s true origins: the days of Maria’s mother and father when the pressure to assimilate in Portuguese-controlled Mozambique formed a distorting bond on the lives of black Mozambicans. A potent whirl of history, mythology, and grapevine chatter, The Joyful Song of the Partridge absorbs you into its many hiding places and lures you along the wandering paths of its principal characters, whose stark words will stay with you long after the journey is done.
Country: namibia
author: neshani andreas
title: the purple violet of oshaantu
publication date: 2001
Genre: fiction
This compelling novel, set in the village community of Oshaantu in rural Namibia, draws on several interconnected stories to offer a compelling picture of the plight of African women. For Kauna, marriage is nothing more than loveless entrapment, and she defies convention by making no secret of her suffering. When her abusive husband is found dead, the villagers are quick to suspect her. Related from the point of view of her best friend, Kauna’s story reveals the value of friendship between women of all kinds.
Country: niger
author: ousseina d. alidou
title: engaging modernity: muslim women and the politics of agency in postcolonial niger
publication date: 2005
Genre: non-fiction
Seizing the space opened by the early 1990s democratization movement, Muslim women are carving an active, influential, but often-overlooked role for themselves during a time of great change. Engaging Modernity provides a compelling portrait of Muslim women in Niger as they confronted the challenges and opportunities of the late twentieth century.
Based on thorough scholarly research and extensive fieldwork—including a wealth of interviews—Ousseina Alidou’s work offers insights into the meaning of modernity for Muslim women in Niger. Mixing biography with sociological data, social theory and linguistic analysis, this is a multilayered vision of political Islam, education, popular culture, and war and its aftermath. Alidou offers a gripping look at one of the Muslim world’s most powerful untold stories.
Country: nigeria
author: AYÒBÁMI ADÉBÁYÒ
title: stay with me
publication date: 2017
Genre: fiction
Yejide and Akin have been married since they met and fell in love at university. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide have always agreed: polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage—after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying strange teas and unlikely cures—Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time—until Akin’s family arrives 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 does–but at a cost far greater than she could have dared to imagine. An electrifying novel of enormous emotional power, Stay With Me asks how much we can sacrifice for the sake of family.
Country: rwanda
author: beata umubyeyi mairesse
title: all your children, scattered
publication date: 2022
Genre: fiction
Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse’s debut novel follows three generations torn apart by the Rwandan genocide, as they try to reconnect with one another, rebuild broken links, and find their place in today’s world.
Blanche returns to Rwanda after building a life in Bordeaux with her husband and young son, Stokely. Reuniting with her mother Immaculata, old wounds are reopened for both mother and daughter, while Stokely, caught between two countries, tries to understand where he comes from and where he belongs.
Country: São Tomé and Príncipe
author: CONCEIÇÃO LIMA
title: A DOLOROSA RAIZ DO MICONDÓ
publication date: 2006
Genre: poetry
A Dolorosa Raiz do Micondó contains 27 poems. Lima’s poetry is thematic in its genealogical composition. Her words are personal, intimate and, at times, painful as they evoke family ties and the suffering of her ancestors (and other São Toméans) who were brought against their will to the archipelago from mainland Africa and later sent to other countries as slaves. This book is also a testimony to the violence that São Tomé and Príncipe have experienced throughout the centuries with poems such as ‘1953’, ‘Jovani’, and ‘Ignomínia’.
Country: senegal
author: marie ndiaye
title: three strong women
publication date: 2009
Genre: fiction
This is the story of three women who say no: Norah, a French-born lawyer who finds herself in Senegal, summoned by her estranged father to save another victim of his paternity; Fanta, who leaves a contented life as a teacher in Dakar to follow her boyfriend back to France, where his depression and dislocation poison everything; and Khady, a penniless widow put out by her husband’s family with nothing but the name of a distant cousin in France. As these three lives intertwine, each woman manages an astonishing feat of self-preservation against those who have made themselves the fastest-growing and most-reviled people in Europe. In Marie NDiaye’s stunning narration we see the progress by which ordinary women discover unimagined reserves of strength. This is a harrowing and beautiful novel of the travails of West African immigrants in France and NDiaye is the first Black woman to win the Prix Goncourt.
Country: seychelles
author: ritah
title: 40 years
publication date: 2019
Genre: poetry
What does one do on turning 40? Ritah, the author of this book, decided to publish 40 poems. Simple to follow, the book offers a round trip from childhood to the age of 40. Seychelles is the idyllic paradise for a holiday; Ritah offers a view of not just a holiday destination but her home with all the ups and downs of daily life. Ritah shares a sincere and organic tableau of her life up to her 40th birthday. Through the 40 poems, Ritah colours her childhood with her family, school, growing up, travelling, bright and shaded sides of the islands, soul searching and her wishes.
Country: sierra leone
author: mariatu kamara
title: the bite of the mango
publication date: 2008
Genre: non-fiction
As a child in a small rural village in Sierra Leone, Mariatu Kamara lived peacefully surrounded by family and friends. Rumours of rebel attacks were no more than a distant worry. But when twelve-year-old Kamara sets out for a neighbouring village, she never arrives. Heavily armed rebel soldiers, many no older than children themselves, attack and torture her. During this brutal act of senseless violence, they cut off both her hands. Stumbling through the countryside, Kamara miraculously survives. The sweet taste of a mango, her first food after the attack, reaffirms her desire to live, but the challenge of clutching the fruit in her bloodied arms reinforces the grim new reality that stands before her. With no parents or living adult to support her and living in a refugee camp, she turns to begging in the streets of Freetown. As told to her by Kamara, journalist Susan McClelland has written the heartbreaking true story of the brutal attack, its aftermath and Kamara’s eventual arrival in Toronto where she began to pull together the pieces of her broken life with courage, astonishing resilience and hope.
Country: somalia
author: waris dirie
title: desert dawn
publication date: 2001
Genre: non-fiction
Fashion model, United Nations ambassador, and courageous spirit, Waris Dirie is a remarkable woman. Born into a family of tribal desert nomads in Somalia, she tells her story of enduring female circumcision at the age of five; running away through the desert at twelve to escape an arranged marriage; being discovered by photographer Terence Donovan as she worked as a cleaner in London; and becoming a top fashion model. Although she fled Somalia, she never forgot the country or the family that shaped her. Desert Dawn is Waris Dirie’s profoundly moving account of her return to her homeland.
Country: south africa
author: thandiwe ntshinga
title: black racist bitch: how social media reveals south africa’s unfinished work on race
publication date: 2023
Genre: non-fiction
Critical whiteness studies is an offshoot of critical race theory that Thandiwe Ntshinga believes is desperately needed in South Africa. In this book, Ntshinga pokes holes in the belief that leaving whiteness undisturbed for analysis creates justice and normalcy. Instead, she says perpetually studying the ‘other’ hinders our development. The title of this book comes from one of the first comments she received on TikTok when discussing her findings and research.
Country: south sudan
author: stella gaitano
title: edo’s soul
publication date: 2023
Genre: fiction
When young Lucy-Eghino, who is coming of age in a 1970s village in southern Sudan, is beset by rumours of approaching violence, she has no choice but to flee—first to Juba, then northwards to Khartoum. Marco, a gentle young father, wages a daily battle to keep his family together while avoiding friction with any northerners. Peter, a soldier unsure of where his loyalties lie, is forced to carry out night raids searching for bands of rebels. Edo’s Souls is a compelling, multi-generational epic that sees the three main characters trapped in a nation gripped by the terrors of civil war, forcing each one to confront their past selves, and to resolve what is most important to them—love, family, or country.
Country: sudan
author: leila aboulela
title: bird summons
publication date: 2019
Genre: fiction
When Salma, Moni, and Iman—friends and active members of their local Muslim Women’s Group—decide to take a road trip together to the Scottish Highlands, they leave behind lives often dominated by obligation, frustrated desire, and dull predictability. Each wants something more out of life but fears the cost of taking it. Salma is successful and happily married but tempted to risk it all when she’s contacted by her first love back in Egypt; Moni gives up a career in banking to care for her disabled son without the help of her indifferent husband; and Iman, in her twenties and already on her third marriage, longs for the freedom and autonomy she’s never known. When the women are visited by the Hoopoe, a sacred bird from Muslim and Celtic literature, they are compelled to question their relationships to faith and femininity, love, loyalty, and sacrifice. In this novel, Leila Aboulela delivers a vibrant portrait of three women who embark on a journey of self-discovery while grappling with the conflicting demands of family, duty, and faith.
Country: tanzania
author: sandra aikaruwa mushi
title: stains on my khanga
publication date: 2014
Genre: fiction and poetry
This is the second anthology of short stories and poems by Tanzanian author Sandra Aikaruwa Mushi. This book will have you laughing and crying. In each piece you will be able to connect to a woman you have come across in the journey of life. It is written honestly and manages to balance an allure of innocence with the harsh realities of knowledge and experience.
Country: togo
author: fauziya kassindja
title: do they hear you when you cry
publication date: 1998
Genre: fiction
A true story of persecution, friendship, and ultimate triumph, Do They Hear You When You Cry chronicles the struggles of two extraordinary women: Fauziya Kassindja, who flees her African homeland to escape female genital mutilation only to be locked up in American prisons for sixteen months; and Layli Miller Bashir, a driven young law student who fights for Fauziya’s freedom.
Country: tunisia
author: HÉLÈNE ALDEGUER
title: after the spring
publication date: 2018
Genre: graphic novel
Two years after the ‘Jasmine Revolution’, Tunisia is unstable and facing economic hardship. Saif, Aziz, Meriem, and Chayma are among those who feel abandoned by the developing turmoil surrounding the government. Saif goes to college but worries about his younger brothers; Aziz struggles to find steady employment, hoping to gain approval from Meriem’s family, while Meriem attends law school; and Chayma, after watching a man set himself on fire, considers emigration to France. As the situation becomes more serious and calls for activism in the streets get louder, each must consider what direction their future lies. Helene Aldeguer delivers an authentic look at the disillusioned state of young people in Tunisia after the events of the Arab Spring illustrated in stark, beautiful black-and-white.
Country: uganda
author: jennifer nansubuga makumbi
title: kintu
publication date: 2014
Genre: fiction
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s debut, Kintu, is an epic novel that instantly became a modern classic following its publication in 2014. Based on Baganda history, it is a story about transgressions and generational curses. The story begins in 1754 when Kintu Kidda, the Ppookino of Buddu Province in Buganda, travels to the capital to swear his allegiance to the new kabaka (king) of Buganda. But before he gets there, he commits a grave transgression that places a generational curse on his family. More than 250 years later, the curse is still in action, and the descendants of Kintu are searching for a way to break its hold.
Country: zambia
author: namwali serpell
title: the old drift
publication date: 2019
Genre: fiction
On the banks of the Zambezi River, there was once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. Here begins the story of a small African nation, told by a swarm-like chorus that calls itself man’s greatest nemesis.
In 1904, in a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (Black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond. As the generations pass, their lives form a symphony about what it means to be human.
From a woman covered with hair and another plagued with endless tears, to forbidden love affairs and fiery political ones, to homegrown technological marvels like Afronauts, microdrones and viral vaccines—this novel sweeps over the years and the globe. The Old Drift is both a historical fiction and science fiction novel.
Country: zimbabwe
author: tsitsi dangarembga
title: nervous conditions
publication date: 1988
Genre: Fiction
First published in the United Kingdom in 1988, Nervous Conditions by Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga, was the first book published by a Black woman from Zimbabwe in English. It follows the life of Tambu, a little child living in colonial Rhodesia, and her struggle to obtain an education. Tambu yearns to learn throughout her childhood, but the men in her life prevent her from doing so. She ultimately receives the education she longs for, as well as an introduction to a wealthy, more Western lifestyle, when she moves in with her uncle. But her new life with him is anything but perfect as we learn about her upbringing, daily activities, and perspective on gender and society.