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In our latest book recommendation, we have compiled a list of seven African novels you didn’t know were older than Things Fall Apart.
Jun 1, 2025
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T hanks to Kenyan literary scholar, Simon Gikandi, Nigerian author Chinua Achebe is often regarded as the inventor of African literature. This is the root of the thriving misconception that Achebe’s groundbreaking novel Things Fall Apart was the first novel to be published by an African. I also believed this misconception for a long time, so it was a delight to finally learn about all the fantastic novels that had been published to critical acclaim before Things Fall Apart. Admittedly, I already knew about some of these novels, but I had never quite put it together that they predate Achebe’s classic.
In our latest book recommendation, we have compiled a list of seven African novels you didn’t know were older than Things Fall Apart. From novels exploring race and colonialism set in pre-apartheid South Africa to fantastical tales that dive into the world of Yoruba mythology, these books prove that the African novel has long been alive, well before Achebe’s emergence.
Read our recommendations below.
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