African Fiction

Any current African fiction of note? Where are you finding it? Here in the midwest, I typically have to use online sources. The last African fiction I purchased was _Tropical Fish_ but I haven't read it yet.

Recent works that I would recommend:

Graceland
Little Boys Come From the Stars
Johnny Mad Dog
Beasts of No Nation
Notes From the Hyena's Belly
Links
The Icarus Girl

Agreed, Notes From the Hyena's Belly! I really enjoyed that one. Another that seems popular though I have not read it yet here is Wizard of the Crow.

Try Sleepwalking Land by Mia Coulto - compelling tale set in war-torn Mozambique.

I enjoyed mating by norman rush, the constant gardener by john le carre, out of africa by isak dinesen , mine boy by peter abrahams, the plays of athol fugard and most recently under the yellow sunand purple hibiscus by adichie.also, disgrace by coetzee and the novels of nadine gordimer. Africa is the setting or the subject of these books although the authors are not all african themselves.

Both of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's books are amazing (Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus). I recently read Beasts of No Nation which is a disturbing look at a boy soldier in an unnamed African country. It is written from the POV of the boy soldier and the language is unusual. For such a short book, it packs a huge punch.

**touchstones are not loading today**

I just recently read Half of a Yellow Sun and it is indeed a quite powerful book.

My favorite african novel not written by an african writer still remains the poisonwood bible

I particularly liked Christopher Obani's Graceland. I lived in Nigeria for six months and the book seemed especially evocative to me. A writer I would highly recommend is Nureedin Farah. I have read most of his novels. I liked all of them.

I haven't read many books by African authors but here are a few: No Longer at Ease,Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe,Bessie head , Peter Abrahams : Wild Conquest,This Island, Now, Tell Freedom, & Mine Boy, Wole Soyinka: the Interpreters, Ake',Buchi Emecheta, "The Joys of Motherhood,The Bride Price,Second Class Citizen,The Family, & The Slave Girl. These are books I purchased quite a time ago. I have a few other authors like Camara Laye, Yambo Ouologuen which I haven't read, why I don't know.
I have traveled to Africa several times and hope to go back. I've been to Egypt,Sudan,Ethiopia,Ghana,Senegal,Ivory Coast,Zambia,Zimbabwe & South Africa.
More later.
Nzingha

Half of a Yellow Sun is just terrific! If you are old enough, it will conjure up those images we saw of starving children in Biafra. I definitely need to add this book to my personal library. (I have recently input some of my African books, but I have a lot more to add, and I also have some in storage, which will lag even longer.)

I occasionally find books on bookmooch (www.bookmooch.com) - Its great because you can get them for free if you sign up and give away your old books! I usually get about 2 books for every one I give away because of the way they do points, and it interfaces with librarything.

I actually find it very hard to

give any of my books away.

Ngingha

Navigation of a Rainmaker (La navigation du faiseur de pluie) by Jamal Mahjoub was a pretty amazing book. I also really enjoyed Arrow of God and Things Fall Apart. (Chinua Achebe is an old African Fiction standby.) If you're up for something unusual, I highly reccommend The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola. Changes by Ama Ata Aidoo was also a great read.

I just finished "Purple Hibiscus by chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and enjoyed it very much. I've started Half a Yellow Sun. I'm surprised at the quality of writing from such a young person.

I just finished Half a yellow sun and I found it excellent. She is some talented writer. I know her next novel I will buy it as soon as its published.

Nzingha

I just finished Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus, too!

I've been writing about them both on all of my groups! It has been a while since I read a book and finished fufilled, reassured.

I think the next two books I want to read are Graceland and Icarus Girl

Abyssinian Chronicles: A Novel by Moses Isegawa. He also wrote Snakepit, but I haven't read that yet.

Last year I read The wizard of the crow, which actually I would rate in the top tier of best books I've ever read. It uses magical realism and satire with a storytelling narrative of a fictional land (that somewhat resembles Kenya) with a dictator intent on building a modern day Tower of Babel: an office park of super skyscraper proportions, to be built with monies from the West. In the midst of this, a shaman, the Wizard of the Crow, arrives to help the sick, guide the nation, and save his own skin while maneuvering around the wheeling and deeling scheming advisors to the dictator. A really great read, highly recommended.

petina gappah An Elegy for Easterly is an excellent collection of short stories (which I don't usually like to read). It gives a low key, unromanticized but at times excruciating look at daily life in Zimbabwe now. Nothing else quite like it that I've seen. Brian Chikwava's Harare North is one I've just started - about Zimbabwean refugee life in London (aka Harare North)I could also be shameless and suggest my own book we are all zimbabweans now

Thanks very much, James, all three look interesting and I'm adding them to my wishlist.

There is a new one out! Egg-Larva-Pupa-Woman by Ogo Akubue-Ogbata

I liked The Tethered Goat. A novel about Ethiopia set in the time of Mengistu's dictatorship

'Not a particularly current title, but I am reading Cry, the Beloved Country.

23: I read Cry the Beloved Country a long time ago and really liked it. I just picked up Alan Paton's Too Late the Phalarope, which has been on my shelves forever. It's very dark, and not as poetical as Cry the Beloved Country. So far, it's an interesting look at several generations of a Afrikaans family.

A Far off Place sits on my TBR shelf. Has anyone read it?

I have just finished reading Chain of Spring love (nominated for the Hurston/Wright Literary Award) by Robert Bwire. It is a tongue-in-cheek story of an illegal African immigrant in the Netherlands who falls in love with an older, sophisticated Dutch lady of means, and unfolds against a backdrop of conflicting loyalties.