Best of 2020: The top books by African writers | Arts and Culture | Al Jazeera

In a year that has been lent to living in the inner world of books, African authors offered a multitude of worlds to escape to.

Combining the guardians of the literary old guard and exciting new voices, the titles on our list of some of the best books by African writers published in 2020 excavate forgotten history, reflect on life today and maneuver through a uncertain future.

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The following selection is a mix of fiction and non-fiction, essays and poetry, all of which represent an exciting year in African literature.

chronicles of the happiest people on earth – wole soyinka

Nanjala Nyabola

Wole Soyinka [File: Themba Hadebe/AP Photo]

For the first time in nearly half a century, Wole Soyinka published a book in a year that turned out to be exceptional for many reasons.

The Nigerian Nobel Prize winner’s 524-page novel, Chronicles of the Happyest People on Earth, tells the story of four sincere friends who formed a pact and vowed to use their talents and working hard to bring about meaningful change in your country, nigeria.

Years later, his enthusiasm is tempered by the comforts and compromises of aging and the lingering disappointments of post-independence Nigeria.

First available in Nigeria, the novel will be available globally next year.

the first woman/girl is a body of water – jennifer nansubuga makumbi

Who do you turn to when adults don’t answer your questions and your spirit leaves your body? In Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s second novel, she consults the town witch. Kirabo moves from an isolated village to a bustling Kampala to an elite boarding school as she tries to find answers as she navigates her own rich inner life and the uncertainty of Idi Amin’s dictatorship.

In her award-winning debut Kintu, which established her as an author who has carved out for herself a distinctive position on the African and global literary scene, Nansubuga Makumbi examined the Ugandan origin myth in a thoroughly modern way. With The First Woman, also published under the title A Girl Is a Body of Water, Nansubuga Makumbi explores the power of women in a society bent on stripping them of it.

travel as a black: essays inspired by a life on the move – nanjala nyabola

Ugandan academic Stella Nyanzi and activists protest against the way that government distributes the relief food and the lockdown situation to control the spread of

Nanjala Nyabola

The passport is perhaps one of the clearest markers of national power, its power on display in queues at borders around the world. The relative humility of an African passport is not only felt in the arduous and expensive visa processes its carriers endure, but in the perceptions African tourists weather when we finally do cross the border.

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humanitarian advocate and political analyst nanjala nyabola crosses foreign nations with humor and insight. In Traveling While Black, a collection of essays inspired by a life on the move, Nyabola reflects on a world that seems to prefer her to have stayed in Nairobi, but also one that embraces her and teaches us all about belonging as she stands out. .

It is in the joy of not being noticed, however, that nyabola subverts the dusty guide’s perceptions of traveling in Africa and traveling as an African.

after earth – lauren beukes

South African science fiction writer Lauren Beukes could not have predicted that her book on life after a pandemic would end in the middle of a pandemic; that was literary luck.

afterland is a world without men after a plague has killed them all. It’s also the story of a mother and her son, trying to make their way through a rotting America while being hunted by the men’s department and a ruthless sister. In her fifth novel, Beukes stares at the world as it is, and then turns it upside down and inside out.

as stephen king wrote: “how can you not fall in love with a book in which ppe-wearing scientists tasked with discovering a vaccine are called plague nauts?”

the death of vivek oji – akwaeke emezi

Best of 2020: The top books by African writers | Arts and Culture | Al Jazeera

Akwaeke Emezi [File: Greg Allen/Invision/AP Photo]

Dead on the first page, one could assume where the story of Vivek Oji will go.

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But, as those left behind often discover, only after the death of their loved one do they realize how little they knew the person they claimed to love and know.

In a small town in Nigeria, the death of a misunderstood young man forces his family to question their own lives.

Akwaeke Emezi’s third novel, following the acclaimed Sweet Water and Pet, Vivek Oji’s Death has been described as a murder mystery, a family drama, a book that makes the invisible seen.

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that is the gift of emezi, to inhabit worlds and genres and bend them to his will and bring home truths to the real world.

transcendent realm – yaa gyasi

yaa gyasi shot to literary stardom when her first novel, homegoing, was bought in a six-figure deal and became an instant bestseller. Critics have described the Transcendent Realm as proof that Coming Home wasn’t a one-hit wonder.

Transcendent Kingdom is the story of a grieving Ghanaian family in the deep south of the United States. it is in the parallels between science and spirituality, between addiction and success, stoicism and vulnerability that gyasi’s characters navigate the ideological idea and physical terrain of america as outsiders and as insiders in the transposed world they have created in alabama. At the heart of this book is a relationship between a mother and a daughter, at once distant and suffocatingly close, not unlike the relationship between immigrants and home.

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the death of comrade president – alain mabanckou

Best of 2020: The top books by African writers | Arts and Culture | Al Jazeera

Alain Mabanckou [File: Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo]

Alain Mabanckou, twice an International Booker Prize finalist, excels in the absurd and surreal, with titles such as Black Moses and African Psycho. Perhaps Mabanckou, who was born in Congo-Brazzaville, is simply a keen observer of an absurd world.

in the death of comrade president, translated by helen stevenson, the child protagonist michel cannot remain aloof from the world that is amusingly, poignantly and violently crumbling around him following the death of a dictator in communist congo in 1977.

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The murder and resulting chaos raise questions about power and decolonization from the home to the government building.

the akashic noir series – accra, addis ababa, johannesburg and nairobi noir

Without an acacia tree or Serengeti sunset in sight, the noir anthologies are a glimpse into the slum skyscrapers of Africa’s biggest cities.

this year saw four new books in the akashic noir series set in african metropolises: accra noir edited by nana-ama danquah, nairobi noir edited by peter kimani, joburg noir edited by niq mhlongo and addis abeba noir edited by the booker shortlisted maaza mengiste.

Each anthology repositions the black genre within urban Africa, both geographically and culturally, dealing with themes ranging from history and myth to inequality and displacement. short story anthologies include established authors such as ngūgī wa thiong’o and introduce readers to new voices from africa, such as ayesha harruna attah. from east to west, from north to south, these are the stories that reflect an urban reality of the continent today.

there are no roses in my mouth – stella nyanzi

Best of 2020: The top books by African writers | Arts and Culture | Al Jazeera

Stella Nyanzi [File: Abubaker Lubowa/Reuters]

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni will not appreciate these poems. It was after all under his rule that the academic and gender activist Stella Nyanzi was imprisoned for criticising the long-serving ruler.

Divided into three sections: in prison, on feminism and on uganda, there are no roses in my mouth is an anthology of anger and frustration, but also of resilience.

After his release in February this year, Nyanzi did not flinch and once again took on the state while running for parliament.

strange faces – namwali serpell

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namwali serpell will not be limited to a single genre, or even a single book. Serpell’s 2019 fiction debut, The Old Drift, is a tapestry of historical fiction, magical realism, satire, and science fiction and has won him a number of awards, including the Arthur C Clarke Award and the Windham-Campbell Award.

Professor of English at Harvard University, Serpell’s academic writing preceded her fiction and may help her new fans understand how Serpell so deftly handled the sprawling, multi-generational epic she created in her fiction.

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The Zambian writer’s latest book of essays, stranger faces, asks the public to read the human face as a language, as a source of identity and understanding, and to examine our own responses to faces we don’t immediately recognize.

six years with al qaeda: the stephen mcgown story – tudor caradoc-davies

Best of 2020: The top books by African writers | Arts and Culture | Al Jazeera

Stephen McGown [File: Themba Hadebe/AP Photo]

Without sounding glib, Stephen McGown describes the beginning of his ordeal as taking the wrong turn. While on a motorcycle tour in Mali, South African McGown was kidnapped by al-Qaeda fighters in Timbuktu in 2011.

In his memoir, Six Years with Al Qaeda: The Stephen McGown Story, McGown recalls life in the desert, detailing how his captors moved, their paranoia, but also their far-reaching connections and disciplined organization.

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while tudor author caradoc-davies marvels at how mcgown managed to keep his sanity, what’s perhaps more fascinating is the game of mental chess mcgown played, with himself a pawn until his freedom in 2017.

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additional recommendations:

at night all blood is black – david diop (first published in french in 2018; translation published in english in 2020)

More than two million Africans fought in the First World War, yet their stories have gone unreported for nearly a century.

david diop imagines the life of alfa and mademba, two senegalese soldiers fighting for france. First published in France, Anna Moschovakis’s English translation of Night All Blood Is Black was published earlier this year.

The book, through alpha, asks a central question that may have echoed in the minds of African soldiers in the trenches: who is the enemy? Is it the German in no man’s land with his sights set on global domination, or the French soldier who fights by my side, already controlling my world? on bloodied fields, alpha plays wild and exposes the hypocrisy of war violence and racism.

the perfect nine – ngugi wa thiong’o (gikuyu version published in 2018 in kenya; english version published in 2020

Best of 2020: The top books by African writers | Arts and Culture | Al Jazeera

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o [File: Antony Njuguna/Reuters]

A perennial favourite but never a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s literary output is not affected by the bookies or critics.

Instead, he remains a prolific writer even as his position as one of the godfathers of African literature was secured long ago.

Now at 81, ngūgī is trying out a new genre, the epic.

The Perfect Nine is the origin story of the Gikuyu people of Kenya, intertwining myth and history. Told from a feminist perspective, Ngugi tells the story of the elders’ quest to find the perfect match for their 10 daughters.

Ngugi’s fascination with language is endless and his latest work has been described as drawing on Homeric and oral tradition, incorporating African mythology into the canon still dominated by Greek and European histories.

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