Staff Picks
#BroaderBookshelf 2022 - African Countries Authors (Southern Africa)
- Mahogany S.
- Monday, October 31, 2022
Collection
Check out one of these titles and fulfill the #BroaderBookshelf 2022 Reading Challenge prompt "read a book by an author from an African nation".
This list is part of the #BroaderBookshelf 2022 Reading Challenge. Find more lists here.
Afterland
Published in 2020
"Three years after a plague has wiped out the male population, twelve-year-old Miles is one of the last boys alive, and his mother, Cole, will protect him at all costs. On the run after a horrific act of violence, and pursued by Cole's own ruthless sister, Billie - all Cole wants is to raise her kid somewhere he won't be preyed on as a reproductive resource or a sex object or a stand-in son. Someplace like home."--Publisher description.
Nervous Conditions
A Novel
Published in 2021
Two decades before Zimbabwe won independence and ended white minority rule, thirteen-year-old Tambudzai Sigauke embarks on her education. On her shoulders rest the economic hopes of her parents, siblings, and extended family. and within her burns the desire for independence. She yearns to be free of the constraints of her rural village and thinks she's escaped when her wealthy uncle sponsors her schooling. But she soon learns that the education she receives at his mission school comes with a price.
Bitter Fruit.
Published in 2007
With the publication of Kafka's Curse, Achmat Dangor established himself as an utterly singular voice in South African fiction. His new novel is a clear-eyed, witty, yet deeply serious look at South Africa's political history and its damaging legacy in the lives of those who live there. The last time Silas Ali encountered Lieutenant Du Boise, Silas was locked in the back of a police van and the lieutenant was conducting a vicious assault on Silas's wife, Lydia, in revenge for her husband's participation in Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. When Silas sees Du Boise by chance twenty years later, as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is about to deliver its report, crimes from the past erupt into the present, splintering the Alis' fragile peace. Meanwhile Silas and Lydia's son, Mikey, a thoroughly contemporary young hip-hop lothario, contends in unforeseen ways with his parents' pasts. A harrowing story of a brittle family on the crossroads of history and a fearless skewering of the pieties of revolutionary movements, Bitter Fruit is a cautionary tale of how we do, or do not, address the past's deepest wounds.
The Promise
Published in 2021
"A modern saga that could only have come from South Africa, written in gorgeous prose by the Booker Prize-shortlisted author Damon Galgut. Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family loses touch after the death of their matriarch. Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of South Africa; Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life's unfulfilled promises; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt. Reunited by four funerals over three decades, the dwindling family reflects the atmosphere of its country - an atmosphere of resentment, renewal, and - ultimately - hope. The Promise is an epic drama that unfurls against the unrelenting march of national history, sure to please current fans and attract many new ones."--Provided by publisher
The Book of Memory
Published in 2016
Memory, the narrator of Petina Gappah's The Book of Memory, is an albino woman languishing in Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison in Harare, Zimbabwe, after being sentenced for murder. As part of her appeal, her lawyer insists that she write down what happened as she remembers it. The death penalty is a mandatory sentence for murder, and Memory is, both literally and metaphorically, writing for her life. As her story unfolds, Memory reveals that she has been tried and convicted for the murder of Lloyd Hendricks, her adopted father. But who was Lloyd Hendricks? Why does Memory feel no remorse for his death? And did everything happen exactly as she remembers?
The Ballad of Perilous Graves
Published in 2022
"In a fantastical version of New Orleans where music is magic, a battle for the city's soul brews between two young mages, a vengeful wraith, and one powerful song in this vibrant and imaginative debut contemporary fantasy"-- Provided by publisher.
Undisciplined Heart
Published in 2010
When Jane Katjavivi becomes involved in London in support of change in Southern Africa, she meets and marries a Namibian activist in exile. Moving with him to Namibia at the time of Independence in 1990, she faces a new life in a starkly beautiful country. She starts to publish Namibian writing and opens a bookshop. In Windhoek she develops friendships with a group of strong, independent women, who have also come from other countries, and are engaged in different ways to overcome the divisions of the past. Over coffee, drinks and food, they support each other through times of happiness and sadness, through juggling careers and family, and through illness and death. When her husband is made Ambassador to the Benelux countries and the European Union, and later Berlin, Jane has to build a new identity as the wife of an ambassador, and come to terms with her own ill-health without her friends around her to support her. Set against the backdrop of the historical, political and social development of newly independent Namibia, Undisciplined Heart tells the story of Jane's love for her family, friends and her adopted country, in a gentle and honest way that reflects the joys and tragedies of life
Conversations with Myself
Published in 2010
This historic collection of documents archived at the Nelson Mandela Foundation offers an unprecedented insight into Mandela's remarkable life--from his first stirrings of political consciousness to his galvanizing role on the world stage.
Hum if You Don't Know the Words
Published in 2017
"Perfect for readers of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, a perceptive and searing look at Apartheid-era South Africa, told through one unique family brought together by tragedy. Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a ten-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division of race, and their meeting should never have occurred. Until the Soweto Uprising, in which a protest by black students ignites racial conflict, alters the fault lines on which their society is built, and shatters their worlds when Robin's parents are left dead and Beauty's daughter goes missing. After Robin is sent to live with her loving but irresponsible aunt, Beauty is hired to care for Robin while continuing the search for her daughter. In Beauty, Robin finds the security and family that she craves, and the two forge an inextricable bond through their deep personal losses. But Robin knows that if Beauty finds her daughter, Robin could lose her new caretaker forever, so she makes a desperate decision with devastating consequences. Her quest to make amends and find redemption is a journey of self-discovery in which she learns the harsh truths of the society that once promised her protection. Told through Beauty and Robin's alternating perspectives, the interwoven narratives create a rich and complex tapestry of the emotions and tensions at the heart of Apartheid-era South Africa. Hum if You Don't Know the Words is a beautifully rendered look at loss, racism, and the creation of family"-- Provided by publisher.
Kaffir Boy
The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa
Published in 1998
A Black writer describes his childhood in South Africa under apartheid and recounts how Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith helped him leave for America on a tennis scholarship.
Mukwahepo
Women Soldier Mother.
Published in 2013
In 1963 Mukwahepo left her home in Namibia and followed her fiance across the border into Angola. They survived hunger and war and eventually made their way to Tanzania. There, Mukwahepo became the first woman to undergo military training with SWAPO. For nine years she was the only woman in SWAPO's Kongwa camp. She was then thrust into a more traditional women's role--taking care of children in the SWAPO camps in Zambia and Angola. At Independence, Mukwahepo returned to Namibia with five children. One by one their parents came to reclaim them, until she was left alone. Already in her fifties, and with little education, Mukwahepo could not get employment. She survived on handouts until the Government introduced a pension and other benefits for veterans. Through a series of interviews, Ellen Ndeshi Namhila recorded and translated Mukwahepo's remarkable story. This book preserves the oral history of not only the "dominant male voice" among the colonized people of Namibia, but brings to light the hidden voice, the untold and forgotten story of an ordinary woman and the outstanding role she played during the struggle.
When the Ground is Hard
Published in 2019
At Swaziland's Keziah Christian Academy, where the wealth and color of one's father determines one's station, once-popular Adele bonds with poor Lottie over a book and a series of disasters.