African literature

Heart of the Hunter

by Deon Meyer

Six-foot five-inch Thobela "Tiny" Mpayipheli was once a feared assassin and freedom fighter, trained by the Stasi and KGB. In post-apartheid South Africa, he's happily working in a garage. But Tiny’s quiet...

Seven Days

by Deon Meyer

A police officer is shot dead. The next day, one of his colleagues is as well. Then the South African police receive an email threatening an additional cop killed each day until a cold case is solved. Inspector...

Things Fall Apart: A Novel

by Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart tells two intertwining stories, both centering on Okonkwo, a “strong man” of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first, a powerful fable of the immemorial conflict between the individual and...

The Thing Around Your Neck

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie burst onto the literary scene with her remarkable debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, which critics hailed as “one of the best novels to come out of Africa in years” (Baltimore Sun), with...

Half of a Yellow Sun

Women's Prize for Fiction 2007

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

With effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria...

No Longer at Ease

by Chinua Achebe

The second book in Achebe's "African trilogy": A classic story of personal and moral struggle as well as turbulent social conflict.

When Obi Okonkwo—grandson of Okonkwo, the main character in Things Fall Apart...

Stolen Lives

Jade de Jong #2

by Jassy Mackenzie

When wealthy Pamela Jordaan hires PI Jade de Jong as a bodyguard after her husband Terrance disappears, Jade thinks keeping an eye on this anxious wife will be an easy way to earn some cash. But when a determined...

In a Strange Room

by Damon Galgut

A finalist for the 2010 Man Booker Prize

In this newest novel from South African writer Damon Galgut, a young loner travels across eastern Africa, Europe, and India. Unsure what he's after, and reluctant to...

The Virgin of Flames

by Chris Abani

From the author of the award-winning GraceLand comes a searing, dazzlingly written novel of a tarnished City of Angels Praised as “singular” (The Philadelphia Inquirer) and “extraordinary” (The New York...

We Need New Names: A Novel

by Noviolet Bulawayo

Darling is only 10 years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of...

Americanah

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

From the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, a dazzling new novel: a story of love and race centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries...

Pale Horses

Jade de Jong #4

by Jassy Mackenzie

Book 4 in the PI Jade de Jong thriller series set in South Africa

At first, the case appears to be one of simple misadventure. Sonet van Rensburg, a base jumper, falls to her death while attempting to parachute...

A Dry White Season

by Andre Brink

As startling and powerful as when first published more than two decades ago, André Brink's classic novel, A Dry White Season, is an unflinching and unforgettable look at racial intolerance, the human condition,...

The Magic of Saida

by M.G. Vassanji

Giller Prize–winner M. G. Vassanji gives us a powerfully emotional novel of love and loss, of an African/Indian man who returns to the town of his birth in search of the girl he once loved—and the sense...

Purple Hibiscus: A Novel

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. They're completely...

Philida

by Andre Brink

This is what it is to be a slave: that everything is decided for you from out there. You just got to listen and do as they tell you. You don’t say no. You don’t ask questions. You just do what they tell...

Bundu

by Chris Barnard & Michiel Heyns

A classic Afrikaans novel full of romance, adventure, and compassion, translated for the first time into English

In a place near Mozambique, drought is causing devastation. Hosts of desperate natives seek refuge...

A Blade of Grass

by Lewis DeSoto

Märit Laurens is a young woman of British descent who comes to live with her husband, Ben, on their newly purchased farm along the border of South Africa. Shortly after her arrival, violence strikes at the...

The Stone Virgins

by Yvonne Vera

Winner of the Macmillan Prize for African Adult Fiction

An uncompromising novel by one of Africa's premiere writers, detailing the horrors of civil war in luminous, haunting prose

In 1980, after decades of guerilla...

Butterfly Burning

by Yvonne Vera

Butterfly Burning brings the brilliantly poetic voice of Zimbabwean writer Yvonne Vera to American readers for the first time. Set in Makokoba, a black township, in the late l940s, the novel is an intensely...