Possibly my favorite book so far, A GIRL IS A BODY OF WATER, is set in Uganda and follows the life of Kirabo, from her rich, happy childhood in a small rural village in Uganda, to her young adulthood as an educated, student nurse in Kampala. Abandoned by her mother at birth, Kirabo is loved and mothered and guided by multiple women throughout her life. I loved how the novel dealt with large, societal, and feminist issues in a contained, personalized way.

Baho! by Roland Rugero is the first Burundian novel to be translated into English. Published in France in 2012, and translated into English by Christopher Schaefer in 2015, the story is set in the fictional village of Hariho, following a day in the life of a young mute boy named Nyamuragi, who is falsely accused of rape.

Leila Aboulela was born in Cairo and grew up in Khartoum. She has written two short story collections and four other novels, apart from BIRD SUMMONS: THE TRANSLATOR, MINARET and LYRICS ALLEY, all of which were long-listed for the Orange Prize, and THE KINDNESS OF ENEMIES.

Sulaiman Addonia was born in Eritrea but fled the country after the Om Hajar massacre in 1976 and spent his early life in a refugee camp in Sudan. In his early teens he lived and studied in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and went on to earn an MA from the University of London. His novel The Consequences of Love was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and translated into more than twenty languages.

BASALI! STORIES BY AND ABOUT WOMEN IN LESOTHO is a collection of short stories by multiple Basotho women writers, curated and edited by K. Limakatso Kendall. About half the stories were first told orally in Sesotho, by woman who neither speak nor write English, then retold by their English-speaking children or relatives and transcribed for this book

CATALOGUE OF A PRIVATE LIFE is a collection of short stories by Libyan writer, Najwa Bin Shatwan.

Book 12 in Week 12 is my Djibouti pick, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AFRICA, by Abdourahman A. Waberi. Translated from the French by David and Nicole Ball, the story flips international history and the contemporary world structure on its head, establishing Africa as the financial, cultural, and political center of the world, while people from disease and poverty-stricken countries in Europe and North America scramble for aid and asylum.

My Kenya pick (book 11 in week 11) is the beautifully written, fantastical coming-of-age story, THE HOUSE OF RUST, by the Mombasarian writer, Khadija Abdalla Bajaber. Bajaber lives in Mombasa, Kenya, and is of Hadrami descent. The Hadrami are an ethnic Arab group with a long seafaring and trading tradition, which has led to the community spreading in a wide diaspora around the Indian Ocean basin—from the Swahili Coast in East Africa around the Horn of Africa, through South Arabia, to Hyderabad in South India. Bajaber draws from oral traditions of this rich, ancient culture in telling this engaging tale.

Book 10 in week 10 is my Chadian pick, TOLD BY STARLIGHT IN CHAD, by Joseph Brahim Seid. Written in French, the book was translated to English by Karen Haire Hoenig. Hoenig dedicated the translation to her father, who was also a translator and had almost finished translating Au Tchad Sous Les Étoiles, when he died in 1995. Hoenig never found the manuscript of her father’s translation, but took up the task herself and named the completed translation after her father’s working title: Told by Starlight in Chad.

Sarah Mkhonza is a writer, activist, and professor of English from Swaziland. She has published two novels, Pains of a Maid and WEEDING THE FLOWERBEDS, short stories, as well as poetry. Sarah believes that texts that express issues of women and children are necessary for society to understand itself.

Women’s writing in Cameroon has so far been dominated by Francophone writers. The short stories in this collection, YOUR MADNESS, NOT MINE, by Makuchi, represent the yearnings and vision of an Anglophone woman, who writes both as a Cameroonian and as a woman whose life has been shaped by the minority status her people occupy within the nation-state.

Dr. Sindiwe Magona is an author, storyteller, motivational speaker, poet, playwright, and actor. She has received numerous literary awards as well as awards in recognition of her work around women’s issues, the plight of children, and the fight against apartheid and racism. Dr. Magona recently received the Ellen Kuzwayo Award as well as her third honorary doctorate from Nelson Mandela University. She lives and works in Cape Town.

Adrienne Yabouza was born in the Central African Republic in 1965. She fled the civil war with her 5 children and gained political asylum in France. She is self-educated and worked as a hairdresser for many years before finding success as a writer. CO-WIVES, CO-WIDOWS (Co-épouses, co-veuves, translated by Rachael McGill) is Yabouza’s second novel to be published in French and the first novel from the Central African Republic to be translated into English.

Unlike most girls in her generation, Mariama Bâ—born in Dakar, Senegal, in 1929—was well educated. Even as a school girl, her writing suggested a critical approach to societal issues, particularly the inequalities between men and woman, which she addresses i SO LONG A LETTER, her first novel which earned her great acclaim. Bâ was a pioneer of women’s rights in her life and in her work, and was active in many Senegalese woman’s organizations.

Maaza Mengiste was born in Addis Ababa and lives in New York City. She received a 2020 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and is the author of BENEATH THE LION’S GAZE, which is also set in Addis Ababa and follows the political upheaval which rocked the city in the 1970s.

Ananda Devi was born in Trois Boutiques, Mauritius, spent time in Congo-Brazzaville, and lives in France. Devi has published eleven novels as well as short stories and poetry, and has won multiple literary awards. EVE OUT OF HER RUINS was translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman. The book was awarded the prestigious Prix des cinq continents as the best book written in French outside of France, and was made into a movie—The Children of Troumaron.

Yaa Gyasi was born in Mampong, Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. She studied at Stanford University and earned her MFA at Iowa Writer’s Workshop. HOMEGOING received the PEN/Hemingway Award and the National Book Critics Circle/John Leonard Award. The book was inspired by a visit to Cape Coast Castle, where Gyasi visited the dungeons where African slaves were held in horrifying conditions, before being shipped to the Americas.

Véronique Tadjo was born in Paris but grew up and was educated in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, and earned a doctorate at the Sorbonne. She has published two collections of poems, three novels, and written and illustrated several children’s books. AS THE CROW FLIES was translated from the French by Kenyan-born, Wangūi wa Goro.

The list of African books by African writers I’ve chosen to read this year. It is almost complete, although there are still a few countries I have not yet been able to source books from, but I’m hoping to cover them all by the end of the year and I’ll update this list as I do. I’m also open to suggestions and recommendations.