Africa reading list

When did I first get interested in Africa? I think it might go back to my first year in college when a friend introduced me to a film (I later learned it was from a book) focusing on a young boy growing up in WWII-era South Africa: The Power of One. I fell in love with the soundtrack, and the movie, and that seed planted something in my adventurous spirit. Of course, once I actually knew I would move to Africa, the reading really began in earnest… and hasn’t stopped since.

Books about Africa really have a number of sub-genres, of course. There are the personal memoirs; stories like those out of Zimbabwe about a white kid growing up in a doomed climate (Don’t Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight, Mukiwa, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun). There are the other personal memoirs: usually either hilarious or self-flagellating recollections of travels through Africa, country by country, or down a certain river or up one coastline or another (Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik, Facing the Congo, Dark Star Safari). There’s historical fiction, such as the classic 19th century’s Heart of Darkness or Michener’s The Covenant I & II. Sweeping historical looks at Africa in general (Scramble for Africa) or yet another account of Livingstone and/or Stanley’s journeys (Into Africa: the Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone). And many present-day account about what is wrong with Africa and how it can be fixed, if it can at all.

I’m no authority, but have spent considerable time reading about Africa in all its aspects. The only thing I don’t really enjoy is books authored by actual Africans. I’m thinking Mia Couto, perhaps Mozambique’s most famous author. While he writes beautifully, I can’t make the jump between his blending of fantasy and reality. He lives in an African’s worldview, which often melds the two seamlessly to such an extent that I get completely lost. And shame on me for it. Maybe one day…

–BY COUNTRY/REGION–

Botswana
The No. 1 Ladies Detective (series) by Alexander McCall Smith. This includes the following books:

• The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (1998)
• Tears Of The Giraffe (2000)
• Morality for Beautiful Girls (2001)
• The Kalahari Typing School for Men (2002)
• The Full Cupboard of Life (2004)
• In The Company of Cheerful Ladies (2004 – also known as The Night-Time Dancer)
• Blue Shoes and Happiness (2006)
• The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (2007)
• The Miracle at Speedy Motors (2008)
• Tea Time for the Traditionally Built (2009)

Central Africa (in general)

• The Zanzibar Chest, Aidan Hartley

Congo

• Facing the Congo, by Jeffrey Tayler
• Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
• King Leopold’s Ghost, Adam Hochschild
• In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, by Michela Wrong
• Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver

Equatorial Guinea

• Tropical Gangsters: One Man’s Experience With Development And Decadence In Deepest Africa, Robert Klitgaard

Ethiopia

• Chameleon Days: An American Boyhood in Ethiopia, by Tim Bascom

Kenya

• The Flame Trees of Thika, Elizabeth Huxley
• A Guide to the Birds of East Africa, Nicholas Drayson
• Out of Africa, Karen Blixon
• West With the Night, Beryl Markham
• The White Masai: My Exotic Tale of Love and Adventure, Corinne Hofmann

Malawi

• AIDS in Africa: How Did It Ever Happen?, Frank Ham
• Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, The, by William Kamkwamba
• Can You Tell Me Why I Went to War?, Mario Kolke
• Cape Maclear, P A Cole-King
• History of Malawi From the Earliest Times to the Year 1915, D. D. Phiri
• Malawi’s Muslims: A Historical Perspective, David Bone (ed)
• Mangochi – The Mountain the People and the Fort, P A Cole-King
• Mlozi of Central Africa, David Stuart-Mogg
• Surprised by Laughter, Stephen Carr
• Venture to the Interior, by Laurens van der Post
• Wisdom of the Yawo People, Ian Dicks
• some fiction book with an elephant on the cover??? — I’ll try to get the name here shortly

Mozambique

• Carlos Cardoso: Telling the Truth in Mozambique, Paul Fauvet and Marcelo Mosse
• Chasing the Hippo, David Ker
• Do Bicycles Equal Development in Mozambique?, Joseph Hanlon
• In the Killing Fields of Mozambique, Peter Hammond
• Mozambique Mysteries, Lisa St Aubin de Ter

Namibia

• The Land God Made in Anger, by John Gordon Davis

Nigeria

• Little Bee: A Novel, Chris Cleave
• Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe

South Africa

• The Covenant, by James Michener
• Long Road to Freedom, the autobiography of Nelson Mandela
• Soweto Legacy, LA Lutz

Sudan

• Surprised by Laughter, Stephen Carr
  
• What is the What, by Dave Eggers

Tanzania

• Kinship: A Families Journey in Africa & America, Philippe E. Wamba

 

 

 

 

 

 

West Africa (in general)

• A Good Man in Africa, Boyd (unfinished)
• Skeletons of the Zahara, Dean King

Zambia (or Northern Rhodesia)

• The Africa House, Christina Lamb

Zanzibar

• Zanzibar, Giles Foden

Zimbabwe

• Don’t Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight, by Alexandra Fuller
• House of Stone, by Christina Lamb
• Last Resort, The, by Douglas Rogers
• Mukiwa, Peter Godwin
• Scribbling the Cat, by Alexandra Fuller
• When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, Peter Godwin

–OTHER–

Historical

• Into Africa: the Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone, by Martin Dugard
• Scramble for Africa, Thomas Pakenham

How-To

• African Friends and Money Matters, David Maranz