what are some great african novels for a book club?

Question

this month, my book club's topic is called "out of africa"... I like it better when we all chose the same book, but we have to pick our own....

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Does it have to be novels, or could it be books? My two favorites are a play and a memoir. I don't care much for Things Fall Apart, but I love Death and the King's Horseman, a play by another Nigerian, Wole Soyinka. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane is also an absolutely shocking eye-opener of a memoir.

If you're not limited to fiction, you might also consider Escape from Slavery by Francis Bok, a former slave from Sudan. It's less well-told than Mathabane's memoir, but still a worthy subject. I also read We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda. This one is much more informative than plot-oriented, to be sure, but it raises your consciousness--especially interesting if you've seen Hotel Rwanda.

I can think of another couple of authors whose short stories I've read and enjoyed, though I don't know much about novels by them: Bessie Head and Ngugi Wa Thiong'o are excellent writers.

Hope that helps! Can't wait to see what you choose! I teach world lit in high school, you see!

Answer 2

Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' was really the first truly African novel. Achebe had read Joyce Cary's 'Mister Johnson' and was apalled at how casually imperialist the West was when writing about Africa, so he wrote a counter-novel. Reading both books together would be very englightening.
There are still many Western writers who write about Africa as if it was wugga-wugga land. 'The Color Purple' in its African section is breathtakingly condescending to the people of West Africa - but then that is normal in an American writer.
If you want something which is completely unlike any western novel try Amos Tuotuola's 'The Palm Wine Drinkard' - which is told from the point of view of a narrator who is certainly drunk and probably also dead. It is certainly very different.

Answer 3

Do they have to be novels set IN Africa? Or are books about African Americans okay too?

Alex Haley's "Roots" has a good mix of both. "Cry, the Beloved Country" by Alan Paton is a classic about Apartheid in South Africa, but it's not easy reading.

If your group is open to the African American experience, I'd suggest something like "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston or "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou. Those are book club staples.

Answer 4

I would try THINGS FALL APART, by Chinua Achebe, an excellent insight into tribal African life during European Imperialism, or CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY, a good standby, and a poignant examination of apartheid in South Africa, and maybe also, BIKO, by Donald Woods, the South African Journalist.

Both Cry, THE BELOVED COUNTRY, and BIKO, were made into excellent movies.

Denzel Washington gives a great performance as Steve Biko in Cry Freedom, and the movie makes me cry.

Answer 5

Too Late the Phalarope and Cry The Beloved Country by Alan Paton.

Answer 6

Cry the beloved country

The Heart of Darkness

Answer 7

"The River Between" is a great African novel.

Answer 8

"Something of Value" by Robert C, Ruark: About black and white relationships during the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya.

Answer 9

Ditto to George D on all three.

Answer 10

the colour purple