Read Around the World - Africa

Books Set in Africa

Many people are excited to think about future trips this year.  You can also travel the world while sitting in your favorite comfy chair by choosing books from this list.  Enjoy your adventure!

Stay with me by 1988- Ayobami Adebayo

"A novel about a married Nigerian couple who must grapple with staggering levels of loss and betrayal in their quest to create a family for themselves" -- Provided by publisher.

Also available in: e-audiobook

"A powerful, emotional debut novel told in the unforgettable voice of a young Nigerian woman who is trapped in a life of servitude but determined to get an education so that she can escape and choose her own future. Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. This, her mother has told her, is the only way to get a "louding voice"-the ability to speak for herself and decide her own future. But instead, Adunni's father sells her to be the third wife of a local man who is eager for her to bear him a son and heir. When Adunni runs away to the city, hoping to make a better life, she finds that the only other option before her is servitude to a wealthy family. As a yielding daughter, a subservient wife, and a powerless slave, Adunni is told, by words and deeds, that she is nothing. But while misfortunes might muffle her voice for a time, they cannot mute it. And when she realizes that she must stand up not only for herself, but for other girls, for the ones who came before her and were lost, and for the next girls, who will inevitably follow; she finds the resolve to speak, however she can-in a whisper, in song, in broken English-until she is heard"-- Provided by publisher

His only wife : a novel by Peace A. Medie
Also available in: e-book | e-audiobook | large print

"An intelligent and funny debut about a relatable, indomitable heroine: a young seamstress in Ghana who agrees to an arranged marriage, only to realize that some compromises are too extreme to accept, illuminating what it means to be a woman in a rapidly changing world"-- Provided by publisher

Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe
Also available in: e-book | audiobook

Okonkwo is a great warrior and one of the powerful men in his village. When white missionaries and government bureaucrats threaten their tribal customs, he takes violent action.

Cutting for stone : a novel by 1955- A. (Abraham) Verghese
Also available in: e-book

Twin brothers born from a secret love affair between an Indian nun and a British surgeon in Addis Ababa, Marion and Shiva Stone come of age in Ethiopia on the brink of revolution, where their love for the same woman drives them apart.

Also available in: e-book | e-audiobook

A true story of tenacity and imagination describes how an African teenager built a windmill from scraps to create electricity for his home and his village, improving life for himself and his neighbors.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Also available in: e-book

"Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into two different tribal villages in 18th century Ghana. Effia will be married off to an English colonial, and will live in comfort in the sprawling, palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising half-caste children who will be sent abroad to be educated in England before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the Empire. Her sister, Esi, will be imprisoned beneath Effia in the Castle's women's dungeon, and then shipped off on a boat bound for America, where she will be sold into slavery. Stretching from the tribal wars of Ghana to slavery and Civil War in America, from the coal mines in the north to the Great Migration to the streets of 20th century Harlem, Yaa Gyasi's has written a modern masterpiece, a novel that moves through histories and geographies and--with outstanding economy and force--captures the troubled spirit of our own nation"-- Provided by the publisher.