August Reading 2025

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We are past the halfway mark of the year—the perfect time to revisit our reading lists, both completed and pending. It is a time to reflect on the books that have shaped, challenged and delighted us so far. At The Republic, African literature is at the heart of our work. Each week, we share book recommendations from across the continent, speak with African authors, and critically review new releases and milestone publications. Now feels like the right time to look back at the stories that have left their mark on us this year.

In 2017, The Republic released the first instalment of our annual August Reading. The goal of this list is to provide readers with curated book recommendations akin to the ‘Summer Reading’ traditions cherished across the globe. This year, our August Reading list is back with the most important books of the year based on the recommendations from our editorial team, African authors who have been featured in our First Draft interview series and our contributors.

Some of these books probe the fault lines of history, others imagine futures shaped by climate crisis or surveillance states. Some carry us into rural villages or bustling cities; others into the intimate spaces of family, friendship and chosen kinship. All demand that we look again—at the world, at ourselves, at the narratives we inherit and those we create. From the poignant work on homosexuality in Iryn Tushabe’s Everything is Fine Here to the inventiveness of Nnedi Okorafor’s Death of the Author, from Abdulrazak Gurnah’s incisive Theft to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s enduring manifesto Decolonising the Mind, these books navigate love, loss, injustice, identity and the many ways human beings find ways to endure.