First things first: whew! This year’s event was a huge one. We had three live panels, two written round-tables, two guest posts, a playlist, and one pre-recorded panel. We had a week-long #ReadingAfrica challenge, announced a new book, had two booklists on Bookshop.org (including one that was featured on the site’s front page) and even saw a #ReadingAfrica in-store bookstore display. This may have been our biggest one yet. Seriousl, look at all of this:
- A publishers roundtable at LitHub
- A discussion with literary magazine editors at Africa in Words
- A guest post from author Buki Papillion
- A discussion between Zimbabwean authors
- A discussion between literary agents
- Three live events (links below)
When we started #ReadingAfrica Week, we thought small. We were small, after all. We’d just unfurled our “Open for Business” banner earlier that year, and the idea was simple. We just wanted a way to announce ourselves and to shine a spotlight on our colleagues in indie publishing who were doing some of the same work we were. We couldn’t have imagined that six #ReadingAfrica Weeks later, we’d have formed incredible partnerships, built a reading community, gathered together writers and publishers, and because we’re readers too, we’ve also been excited to discover even more books and writers and publishers to love. This has been a great event.
In this post, we’re going to point you to everything we did this year, plus share one new bit of fun. We asked our panelists from our live events to share some of their favorite reads, and we’d like to share those with you. And don’t forget, you can find many of our panelists’ books in this booklist. The best way to support authors you love is to buy their books.
Many thanks to LitHub for hosting our African publishers roundtable
SarahBelle Selig, who essentially keeps Catalyst running both in the US and South Africa, wrote something quite lovely about what #ReadingAfrica means to her:
It’s absolutely critical to me to be #ReadingAfrica to make up for years of traditional education where I was only studying white American and European literature. The further I delve into African literature, the bigger the gaps in my education appear, and to me, #ReadingAfrica is an opportunity to begin slowly re-calibrating my limited worldview. In all honesty, I worried that there would be nothing for me in African stories—that my life was too dissimilar to those in these pages to give me that “spark” one feels when one sees something of oneself in a character or a place. But the more I read, the more it confirmed just the opposite: that African literature carriers the same heartbreak, joy, romance, intrigue, adventure, and comfort as the literature I loved (if not more), and it was only my misconceptions of Africa that prevented me from seeing my common humanity with the people living there. It wasn’t something missing in the pages; it was something missing in me
It really speaks to what this campaign is about. It’s not adding in African literature as just something “new” or “exotic,” instead, it’s about adding African literature because it, like any other piece of good writing, can speak to something deep within us. If a storyteller is putting something on the page that can touch people across oceans and miles, then it is important work. It’s work worth adding to TBR stacks, to libraries, to schools, to canons. It’s as simple as that.
That said, here’s some of the books that spoke to our panelists, and may just speak to you, too.
From “Who Is African: Place, Identity and Belonging in Literature,” co-hosted with LitNet (Note: one of the panelists, Yara Monteiro, was sick and unable to attend. Many thanks to Mphuthumi Ntabeni for doing such a wonderful job as a replacement on such short notice) You can watch the discussion here.
Shameez Patel Papathanasiou, author The Last Feather
For those interested in building fantasy worlds based off African identities, I would recommend:
Namina Forna: The Gilded Ones, Natasha Bowen: Skin of the Sea, Ayana Gray: Beasts of Prey, Ayana Gray
Bridget Pitt, author Eye Brother Horn
Out of Darkness, Shining Light by Petina Gappah; Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi, and Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu’s interconnected works – The Theory of Flight, The History of Man and The Quality of Mercy
Mphuthumi Ntabeni, author The Broken River Tent
Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih and Land Matters by Tembeka Ngcukaitobi
Tope Folarin, author A Particular Kind of Black Man
Yara Monteiro, poet and author Essa dama bate bué!
Black Bazaar by Alain Mabanckou
From “Behind the Scenes: African Filmmakers and Writers on Interplay and Adaptation” co-hosted with The James Currey Society. You can watch the discussion here
Shof Coker, Illustrator and Art Director
The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Fetish (Judge Dredd) by Bayo Akinsiku
Djeliya by Juni Ba
No More the Wasted Breed by Femi Osofisan
Anthony Silverston, Head of Development at Triggerfish, co-author Pearl of the Sea
(Besides Shof’s New Masters and Kariba of course 
)
Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor – I loved the mysteries and magic systems
No 1 Car Spotter by Atinuke – a super charming kids series that we have actually optioned to try develop into a TV series
Sophie the Giantslayer by Kay Carmichael – a storyboard artist we work with, Kay has self-published a fun series that takes the fairytale and spins it on its head a few times
From “The Young Reader: African Children’s Literature” co-hosted with World Kid Lit Blog. You can watch the discussion here (coming soon)
Bridget Krone, author The Cedarville Shop and the Wheelbarrow Swap
Childrens author recommendations:
Refiloe Moahloli (picture books)
Jaco Jacobs (Writes in Afrikaans and English – very prolific picture books and Middle Grade fiction)
The Wood-ash Stars, The Mantis the Moon by Margurite Poland
African adult recommendations:
What Will People Say? by Rehana Rossouw
We Kiss Them With Rain by Futhi Nshingila
The Theory of Flight , The History of Man by Siphiwe Gloria Ndolvu
