Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century

James Wiseman @ Unsplash

I just read a book that was awarded a prize by the BBC as one of the best 100 African books of the last century. And since I have read a few of those who received the prize and think that we should all be reading more about Africa, I thought I'd share the list with you and add links to the books I read.

Children's Books

Asare, Meshack "Sosu's Call" - 1997 - Ghana
Al-Homi, Hayam Abbas "Adventures of a Breath" - Egypt
Mungoshi, Charles Zimbabwe Stories from a Shona Childhood" - 1989 - Zimbabwe
Tadjo, Véronique "Mamy Wata et le monstre" (Mamy Wata and the Monster) - 1993 - Côte d'Ivoire

Creative Writing
Abnudi, Abd ar-Rahman "Death on the Asphalt" - Egypt
Achebe, Chinua  "Arrow of God" - 1964 - Nigeria 
Achebe, Chinua "Things Fall Apart" - 1958 - Nigeria
Aidoo, Christina Ama Ata "Anowa" - 1969 - Ghana
Almeida, Germano "O testamento do Sr. Napumoceno da Silva Araújo" (The Last Will and Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo) - 1989 Cape Verde
Armah, Ayi Kwei "The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born" - 1968 - Ghana
Amadou Hampâté Bâ "L'étrange destin de Wangrin" (The Strange Destiny of Wangrin) - 1973 -  Mali
Bâ, Mariama "Une si longue lettre" (So Long a Letter) - 1979 - Senegal
Ben Jelloun, Tahar "La nuit sacrée" (The Sacred Night) - 1987 - Marokko
Beti, Mongo "Le pauvre Christ de Bomba" (The Poor Christ of Bomba) - 1956  - Cameroon
Brink, André "A Dry White Season" - 1979 - South Africa
Bugul, Ken "Riwan, ou le chemin de sable" (Riwan; or, the Sandy Track) - 1999 Senegal
Cheney-Coker, Syl "The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar" - 1990 - Sierra Leone
Chraibi, Driss "Le passé simple" (The Simple Past) - 1954 - Marocco
Coetzee, J.M. "Life and Times of Michael K." - 1983 - South Africa - Nobel Prize for Literature 2003
Couto, Mia "Terra sonâmbula" (Sleepwalking Land) - 1992 - Mozambique
Craveirinha, José "Karingana ua Karingana" - 1974 - Mozambique
Credo Mutwa, Vusamazulu "Indaba, My Children" - 1964 - South Africa
Dadié, Bernard "Climbié" - 1956 - Côte d'Ivoire
Dangarembga, Tsitisi "Nervous Conditions" - 1988 - Zimbabwe
Dib, Mohammed "Algérie, La grande maison, L'incendie, Le métier à tisser" - 1952/54/57 - Algeria
Diop, Birago "Les contes d'Amadou Koumba" (Tales of Amadou Koumba) - 1947 - Senegal 
Diop, Boubacar "Murambi ou le livre des ossements" (Murambi, the Book of Bones) - 2000 - Senegal
Djebar, Assia "L'amour, la fantasia"(Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade)  - 1985 - Algeria
Emecheta, Florence Onyebuchi "Buchi" "The Joys of Motherhood" - 1979 - Nigeria
Fagunwa, Daniel O. "Ògbójú Ọdẹ nínú Igbó Irúnmọlẹ̀" (Forest of a Thousand Daemons: A Hunter's Saga) - 1938 - Niger
Farah, Nuruddin "Maps" - 1986 - Somalia
Fugard, Athol "The Blood Knot" - 1961 - South Africa
al-Ghitani, Jamal "Al-Zaynī Barakāt/الزيني بركات"  (Zayni Barakat) - 1974 - Egypt
Gordimer, Nadine "Burger's Daughter" - 1979 - South Africa - Nobel Prize for Literature 1991
Head, Bessie "A Question of Power" - 1973 - South Africa
Honwana, Bernardo "Nos matamos o cão tinhoso" (We Killed Mangy Dog and Other Stories) - 1964 - Mozambique
Hove, Chenjerai "Bones" - 1989 - Zimbabwe
Isegawa, Moses Abessijnse Kronieken" (Abyssinian Chronicles) - 1998 - Uganda
Jordan, Archibald Campbell Mzolisa "Ingqumbo yeminyanya" (The Wrath of the Ancestors) - 1940 - South Africa
Joubert, Elsa "Die Swerfjare van Poppie" (The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena) - 1978 - South Africa
Kane, Cheikh Hamidou "L'aventure ambiguë" (Ambiguous Adventure) - 1961 - Senegal
Ka Khosa, Ungulani Ba "Ualalapi" (Ualalapi) - 1987 - Mozambique
Kourouma, Ahmadou " Les soleils des indépendances" (The Suns of Independence) - 1968 - Côte d'Ivoire
Laye, Camara "L'enfant noir" (The African Child) - 1953 - Guinea
Magona, Sindiwe "Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night" - 1991 - South Africa
Mahfouz, Naguib "Bayn al-qasrayn/بين القصرين" (Palace Walk) (Cairo Trilogy #1) - 1956 - Nobel Prize for Literature 1988
- "Qasr el-Shōq/قصر الشوق" (Palace of Desire) (Cairo Trilogy #2) - 1957 
- "Al-Sukkariyya/السكرية" (Sugar Street) (Cairo Trilogy #3) - 1957 -  Egypt
Marechera, Dambudzo "House of Hunger" - 1978 - Zimbabwe
Mofolo, Thomas "Chaka" (Chaka) - 1925 - Lesotho
Monénembo, Tierno "Un attieké pour Elgass" - 1993 - Guinea
Ngugi wa Thiong'o "Caitaani mũtharaba-Inĩ" (Devil on the Cross) - 1980 - Kenya
Ngugi wa Thiong'o "A Grain of Wheat" - 1967 - Kenya
Niane, Djibril Tamsir "Soundjata ou l'épopée mandingue" (Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali) - 1960 - Guinea/Senegal
Nyembezi, Sibusiso "Inkinsela yase Mgungundlovu" - 1961 - South Africa
Okigbo, Christopher "Labyrinths" - 1971 - Nigeria
Okri, Ben "The Famished Road" 1991 - Nigeria
Oyono, Ferdinand "Le vieux nègre et la médaille" (The Old Man and the Medal) - 1956 - Cameroon
P'Bitek, Okot "Song of Lawino" - 1966 - Uganda
Pepetela "A Geração da Utopia" - 1992 - Angola
Saadawi, Nawal El "Woman at Point Zero" - 1975 - Egypt
Salih at-Tayyib "Season of Migration to the North" - 1966 - Sudan
Sassine, Williams "Le jeune homme de sable" 1979 - Guinea
Sembene, Ousmane "Les bouts de bois de Dieu" (God's Bits of Wood) - 1960 - Senegal
Sédar, Léopold Senghor "Œuvre poétique" - 1990 - Senegal
Serote, Mongane " Third World Express David" - 1993 - South Africa
Shabaan, Robert Bin "Utenzi wa vita vya uhuru, 1939 hata 1945" - 1967 - Tanzania
Sow, Aminata Fall "La grève des battus" - 1979 - Senegal
Soyinka, Wole "Death and the King's Horsemen" - 1975 - Nigeria - Nobel Prize for Literature 1986
Tchicaya, U Tam’si "Le mauvais sang - feu de brousse - à trisse-coeur" - 1955 - Congo
Tansi, Sony Labou "La vie et demie" (Life and a Half) - 1979 - Congo
Tutuola, Amos "The Palm-Wine Drinkard"- 1955  - Nigeria
Vera, Yvonne "Butterfly Burning" - 1998 - Zimbabwe
Vieira, José Luandino "Nós os do Makulusu" (Our Gang from Makulusu) - 1967 - Angola
Vilakazi, B. W. "Amal'eZulu" - 1956 - South Africa
Yacine, Kateb "Nedjma" - 1956 - Algeria

Non-fiction

Amin, Samir "L'accumulation à l'échelle mondiale" (Accumulation on a world scale) - 1970 - Egypt
Amadiume, Ifi "Male Daughters, Female Husbands" - 1987 - Nigeria
Andrade, Mário de "Os nacionalismos africanos" - 1998 - Angola
Appiah, Anthony "In My Father's House" - 1992 - Ghana
Cabral, Amilcar "Unity and Struggle" - 1979 - Guinea-Bissau
Chimera, Rocha "Kiswahili, Past, Present and Future Horizons" - 1997 - Kenya
Diop, Cheikh Anta "Antériorité des civilisations nègres" - 1967 - Senegal
Doorkenoo, Efua "Cutting the Rose: Female Genital Mutilation" - 1994 - Ghana
Hayford, J. E. Casely "Ethiopia Unbound" - 1911 - Ghana
Hountondji, Paulin "Sur la philosophie africaine" (African Philosophy: Myth and Reality) - 1976 - Benin
Johnson, Samuel "The History of the Yorubas" - 1921 - Nigeria
Kenyatta, Jomo "Facing Mount Kenya" - 1938 - Kenya
Ki-Zerbo, Joseph "Histoire de l'Afrique noire" (History of Black Africa) - 1972 - Burkina Faso
Krog, Antjie "Country of My Skull" - 1998 - South Africa
Mama, Amina "Beyond the Mask, Race, Gender and Identity" - 1995 - Nigeria
Mamdani, Mahmood "Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Colonialism" - 1996 - Uganda
Mandela, Nelson "Long Walk to Freedom" - 1994 - South Africa - Nobel Peace Prize 1993
Marais, Eugène "Die Siel van die Mier" (Soul of the White Ant) - 1925 - South Africa
Memmi, Albert "Portrait du colonisé suivi de portrait du colonisateur" (The Colonizer and the Colonized) - 1957 - Tunisia
Mondlane, Eduardo "The Struggle for Mozambique" - 1969 - Mozambique
Mphahlele, Ezekiel "Down Second Avenue" - 1959 - South Africa
Mudimbe, V. Y. "The Invention of Africa" - 1988 - Democratic Republic of the Congo
Nkrumah, Kwame "Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame" - 1957 - Ghana
Plaatje, Sol "Native Life in South Africa" - 1924 - South Africa
Soyinka, Wole "Ake: The Years of Childhood" - 1981 - Nigeria - Nobel Prize for Literature 1986
van Onselen, Charles "The Seed is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, a South African Sharecropper 1894-1985" - 1996 - South Africa

(If a book has been translated into English, I have put the translated title in brackets.)