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The Global South is one of the regions most affected by climate change. Yet, the movement for climate conservation has often been criticized for excluding the voices of activists from this part of the world. Black and African peoples continue to fight and write against the degradation of the planet, raising awareness about the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities.
In our latest book recommendation, we have compiled a list of seven books that will make you actually care about climate change. From the memoir of a Ugandan climate activist, which emphasizes the importance of climate justice, to a dystopian novel that imagines a climate-ravaged South Africa, the books on this list will show you just how bad things can get if the world does not prioritize climate conservation.
Read our recommendations below.
parable of the sower
author: octavia e. butler
Genre: fiction
The year is 2024. In a post-apocalyptic United States, ravaged by the effects of climate change, a new religion takes root. Its proponent, Lauren Oya Olamina, is a young woman with the special ability to feel other people’s pain. Displaced from her home, she begins a journey north in search of a better life, joined along the way by various other characters similarly displaced from their homes. It is on this journey that Lauren begins to develop her new religion, which she comes to call Earthseed.
The main tenet of Earthseed is that ‘God is Change’, and humans must ‘shape God’ consciously to effect change around them. Earthseed also teaches that it is humankind’s destiny to travel to other planets and spread the ‘seeds’ of the Earth.
Published in 1983, Parable of the Sower is a major addition to American science fiction author Octavia E. Butler’s corpus, exploring themes of survival, community, faith and environmental destruction.
as long as trees take root in the earth
AUTHOR: alain mabanckou
GENRE: poetry
Congolese author Alain Mabanckou is mostly celebrated for his novels. But in this compelling book of poems, he proves that he is as much a poet as he is a novelist.
As Long as Trees Take Root in the Earth is a compelling collection of poems about an African childhood. The poem evoke nostalgia about a time forever lost, a time before environmental degradation, when the beauty of the earth—its fauna, flora, sounds and smells—shone through. While not strictly an environmentalist book, this collection of poems highlights the importance of climate conservation.
it doesn’t have to be this way
authOR: alistair mackay
GENRE: fiction
When the climate crisis hits Cape Town, South Africa three queer friends, Luthando, Viwe and Malcolm, must find ways to survive despite the collapse.
This technically accomplished novel alternates between the present and the near future, depicting the times before and after the climate disaster. In the present, we see how Luthando’s work as a climate activist increasingly leads to dangerous confrontations with the country. But despite his commitment to climate justice, he is unable to stop ‘the Change’ from happening.
In the near future, ‘the Change’ has forced well-off citizens to flee to the ‘New Temperate Zones’, walled of in a climate-controlled dome, spending their days lost in virtual reality.
Cassava Republic Press is proud to announce the launch of their inaugural $20,000 Global Black Women’s Non-Fiction Manuscript Prize dedicated to exceptional works by Black women. Deadline: 30th June 2024. Learn more here.
how beautiful we were
AUTHOR: imbolo mbue
GENRE: fiction
Cameroonian author Imbolo Mbue’s follow-up to her widely acclaimed 2016 debut Behold the Dreamers is a stunning and moving novel about the effects of environmental degradation. How Beautiful We Were tells the story of a fictional African village, Kosawa, whose proximity to an American oil company spells its doom.
Unable to farm, as oil spills have destroyed their farms, and overwhelmed by the increasing deaths of their children from toxic water, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back against the self-serving government. But this is a battle that will stretch for decades, without the guarantee of success.
a bigger picture
Author: vanessa nakate
Genre: non-fiction
In 2019, when she was only 23 years old, Vanessa Nakate began her climate activism, after witnessing firsthand the effects of climate change on her Ugadan community. She became the Uganda’s first Fridays for Future protestor, quickly earning acclaim for her fierce spirit and commitment to climate justice.
A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis is her memoir. In this book, she not only narrates her experience growing up in Uganda and watching the climate crisis devastate her community, but also makes a poignant case for the inclusion of African voices in the struggle for climate justice.
war girls
AUTHOR: Tochi Onyebuchi
GENRE: fiction
In Nigerian sci-fi author Tochi Onyebuchi’s 2019 dystopian novel, climate change has torn the world apart. The year is 2172, and global powers like the US have fled to space colonies. In Nigeria, the situation is made more dire by civil war.
Ify and Onyii are two sisters whose lives have been irrevocably affected by the war. They live in a camp for War Girls, orphaned teenagers formerly fighting as soldiers for Biafra. But the reality of their situation doesn’t stop them from dreaming—of peace and a future together—and they will do anything to achieve this dream.
in the company of men
authOR: Véronique Tadjo
GENRE: fiction
When two boys contract a terrible disease just after going hunting in a forest near their village, all efforts to heal them fail. To make things worse for their family, medical experts warn against touching the sick. Within a month, the boys are dead. And shortly after that, the virus begins to spread rapidly, ravaging the little West African village.
In this moving novel, Ivorian author Véronique Tadjo depicts the sweeping effect of the 2014 – 2016 Ebola crisis in West Africa. Tadjo does this by drawing a series of vignettes from the perspectives of those most affected by the virus—the doctor risking their life to save infected patients, the student volunteering as a gravedigger as dead bodies accumulate, and the wise and old Baobab tree keeping watch over the village and mourning the degradation of the earth⎈
