Reading Africa Challenge

In 2022, I set myself the challenge of reading a book from every country in Africa in one year, focusing on black African women writers where possible.

Africa is a huge and diverse continent. So huge, in fact, that the continental landmass could contain within its borders the entire United States, as well as China, India, Japan, and a handful of European countries. Despite its size, Africa suffers from ideas of homogeneity—as if it were not a continent, but a single, large country—with only a few themes about Africa occupying Western imaginations. Ideas that African countries are constantly at war, that African men are universally violent, that African people are starving, poverty-stricken, and awaiting Western charity. In her brilliant TED Talk, the Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie addresses how relying on “single stories” to describe an entire continent leads to an over-simplification, in which the true richness, diversity, creativity, and individualism found throughout Africa is lost to stereotype and caricature.

I was born in South Africa. A white child with colonial roots and all the privilege my race and Apartheid allowed. Although I could find myself in the Anglo-centric storybooks I read, the world they described, in which swans drifted on babbling brooks lined with bluebells that ran through hedgerows, was entirely unfamiliar to me. A child who rode her bicycle in the sunshine, built forts in the veld, picked sharp blackjack seeds from her socks, and split open grenadillas fresh off the vine to suck out the wet seeds within was familiar.

My ideal when compiling this list was to find fiction books written by contemporary African women writers, who either lived in or were born in Africa, and who’d written stories set in Africa. This ideal was challenged by things like availability, accessibility, and in a few cases, language. Some of the women writers I found had only been published in French or Portuguese, and there were not always English translations available. In these cases, I either chose a male writer from that country, or poetry or non-fiction books written by women, and managed to complete books from 44 of the 54 countries in Africa during the year of the challenge.

Book List

In alphabetical order, these are the books I found:

Algeria: All Men Want to Know by Nina Bouraoui

Angola: That Hair by Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida

Benin: Autobiography of the Lower East Side, a novel in stories by Rashidah Ismaili

Botswana: Meetings with Death by Botho Lejowa

Burkina Faso: So Distant from My Life by Monique Ilboudo

Burundi: Baho! by Roland Rugero (translated by Christopher Schaefer)

Cape Verde: The Madwoman of Serrano by Dina Salústio

Cameroon: Your Madness, Not Mine, a collection of short stories by Juliana Makuchi Nfah-

Abbenyi. I also read How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

Central African Republic: Co-wives, Co-widows by Adrienne Yabouza (translated by Rachael

McGill)

Chad: Told by Starlight in Chad by Joseph Brahim Seid (translated by Karen Haire Hoeing)

Comoros: A Girl Called Eel by Ali Zamir (translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins)

Rep. of the Congo: As Long as Trees Take Root in the Earth, book of poetry by Alain

Mabanckou (translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson)

Cote d’Ivoire: As the Crow Flies by Véronique Tadjo (translated by Wangui wa Goro)

Djibouti: In the United States of Africa by Abdourahman A. Waberi (Translated by David and

Nicole Ball)

Democratic Republic of Congo: A History of Disappearance, book of poetry by Sarah Lubala Egypt: Women at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi

Equatorial Guinea: The Gurungu Pledge by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel

Eritrea: Silence is My Mother Tongue by Sulaiman Addonia

Eswatini: Weeding the Flower Beds by Sarah Mkhonza

Ethiopia: The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste

Gabon: The Fury and Cries of Women by Angèle Rawiri (translated by Sara Hanaburgh)

Gambia: The Sun Will Soon Shine by Sally Singhateh

Ghana: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Guinea: The Little Peul by Mariama Barry (translated by Carrol F. Coates)

Guinea-Bissau: The Ultimate Tragedy by Abdulai Sila (translated by Jethro Soutar)

Kenya: House of Rust by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber (winner of Graywolf Press Africa Prize)

Lesotho: Basali! A collection of short stories by women writers, edited by K. Limakatso Kendall

Liberia: The House on Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper (non-fiction)

Libya: Catalogue of a Private Life by Najwa Bin Shatwan (translated by Sawad Hussain)

Madagascar: Red Island House by Andrea Lee

Malawi: Nectar (2017) and Soft Magic (2015), books of poems by Upile Chisala

Mali: Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali by Kris Holloway

Mauritania: A Moonless, Starless Sky—Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in

Africa by Alexis Okeowo

Mauritius: Eve Out of Her Ruins by Ananda Devi (translated by Jeffery Zuckerman)

Morocco: In the Country of Others by Leila Slimani

Mozambique: The First Wife: A Tale of Polygamy by Paulina Chiziane (translated by David

Brookshaw)

Namibia: The Purple Violet of Oshaantu by Neshani Andreas

Niger: “Le Déserteur” by Hélène Kaziendé. I was only able to find this short story in French, in a

collection called Kilomètre 30. I have since found the auto-fiction novel, On m’appelle Nina by

Antoinette Tidjani Alou but not in translation.

Nigeria: Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo

Rwanda: Small Country by Gaël Faye (translated by Sarah Ardizzone)

Sao: Tome and Principe Poetry by Alda Neves da Graça do Espírito Santo

Senegal: So Long A Letter by Mariama Bâ (translated by Modupe Bode-Thomas)

Seychelles: 40 Years by Ritah, a book of poetry

Sierra Leone: The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna

Somalia: Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed

South Africa: When the Village Sleeps by Sindiwe Magona

South Sudan: War Child: A Child Soldier’s Story by Emmanuel Jal

Sudan: Bird Summons by Leila Aboulela

Tanzania: Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Togo: Do They Hear You When You Cry? by Fauziya Kassindja

Tunisia: The Scents of Marie-Claire by Habib Selmi

Uganda: A Girl is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Zambia: The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell

Zimbabwe: This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga. This novel is part of the Tambudzai

Trilogy, which includes Nervous Conditions and The Book of Not.

Samantha Keller grew up in South Africa, and after a decade in London, moved to Connecticut, where she completed her MFA at Fairfield University. The Light Remains is Sam’s first novel, and it received an honorary mention by the Fairfield Book Prize. Sam’s short fiction won the Anthony Grooms Prize and appeared in The Connecticut Literary Anthology, 2024. Her work has been a Narrative Story of the Week, a contest finalist in American Short Fiction‘s Halifax Ranch Fiction Prize, and shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. Sam’s first children's picture book, Are You An Alien?, illustrated by her mother, was published in the UK in 2025. Sam is a developmental editor and teaches creative writing. She still lives in Connecticut, US with her husband Grant and children Thomas and Chloe.