Three Modern African Fiction Must Reads
Many times people ask me, what is a good fictional book to read on Africa?
Walking into a bookstore or
browsing online, you are immediately hit with the notion that there are
millions of books, what is a truly good read?
The African Gourmet top three
modern African fiction must read are Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill,
Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi and The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna.
Overall, I happily invest three
hours a day reading. I read to
understand things I have never been exposed to by grace. Below is a short list
of the books that inspired me to learn, grow, and laugh and to be motivated.
Please share books you love in the comments section below.
Someone Knows My Name
by Lawrence Hill
Kidnapped from Africa as a
child, Aminata Diallo is enslaved in South Carolina but escapes during the chaos of the Revolutionary War. In Manhattan, she becomes a scribe for the
British, recording the names of blacks who have served the King and earned
their freedom in Nova Scotia.
But the hardship and prejudice of the new colony
prompt her to follow her heart back to Africa, then on to London, where she
bears witness to the injustices of slavery and its toll on her life and a whole
people.
Ghana Must Go
by Taiye Selasi
Kweku Sai is dead. A renowned
surgeon and failed husband, he succumbs suddenly at dawn outside his home in
suburban Accra. The news of Kweku’s death sends a ripple around the world,
bringing together the family he abandoned years before. Ghana Must Go is their
story.
The Memory of Love
by Aminatta Forna
The Memory of Love takes the
reader through the haunting atmosphere of a country at war, delicately
intertwining the powerful stories of two generations. In contemporary Freetown,
a devastating civil war has left an entire populace with secrets to keep. In
the capital hospital Kai, a gifted young surgeon is plagued by demons that are
beginning to threaten his livelihood.
Elsewhere in the hospital lies
Elias Cole, a man who has stories to tell from the country’s turbulent
postcolonial years that are far from heroic. As past and present intersect, Kai
and Elias are drawn unwittingly closer by Adrian, a British psychiatrist with
good intentions, and into the path of one woman at the center of their stories.
