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Last year, I attended a book chat at the 2023 Aké Arts and Book Festival in Lagos State, Nigeria. The session was hosted by the Ivorian writer and literary translator, Edwige-Renée Dro, who led a conversation with French-Rwandan author Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse, who wrote All Your Children, Scattered, and Cameroonian novelist and author of Days Come and Go, Hemley Boum. Both authors discussed their books, originally written in French and translated into English, providing a rich glimpse into Francophone African literature.
This panel was one of the highlights of the festival for me. It was culturally immersive, offering insight into the realities of life in their respective countries through their stories. I was particularly drawn to their novels because of my growing interest in translated African fiction. Immediately after the panel, I headed to the festival bookstore and picked up copies of All Your Children, Scattered and Days Come and Go. I was thrilled to have both books signed by these fantastic authors.
Fast forward from November 2023 to May 2024, I finally decided to read Days Come and Go. Months later, I still have not encountered a more poignant and devastatingly beautiful book. The novel captures the essence of a rapidly changing Cameroon through the intertwined lives of three generations of women. Boum masterfully explores themes of love, politics, tradition and modernity, and religious extremism with immense care and empathy. So far this year, Days Come and Go stands out as the best book I have read.
In 2017, The Republic released the first instalment of our annual August Reading. The goal of this list is to provide readers with curated book recommendations akin to the ‘Summer Reading’ traditions cherished across the globe. This year, our August Reading list is back with the most important books of the year based on the recommendations from our editorial team, African authors who have been featured in our First Draft interview series, and our contributors. While some of these books are recent publications with authors making their mark on the literary scene—such as Chukwuebuka Ibeh, Uche Okonkwo, Michael Chukwudera and ‘Pemi Aguda—this list also includes popular names such as Chigozie Obioma and Safia Elhillo. Finally, this year’s reading list concludes with a comprehensive selection from The Republic’s editor-in-chief, Wale Lawal. His book recommendations have been pivotal to his research throughout the year.
For their recommendations, read on.
’Pemi Aguda opens her collection of twelve stories with the chilling tale of a woman who uncannily resembles her sinister, deceased grandmother. When the woman shows a capacity for deadly violence, she wonders—can evil be genetic, passed from generation to generation? Set in Lagos, Nigeria, Aguda’s collection of short stories, Ghostroots, unfold against a spectral cityscape where the everyday business of living—the birth of a baby, a market visit, a conversation between mothers and daughters—is charged with an air of supernatural menace. In ‘Breastmilk’ a new mother’s inability to lactate takes on preternatural overtones. In ‘24, Alhaji Williams Street’ a mysterious disease wreaks havoc with frightening precision. In ‘The Hollow’, an architect stumbles on a vengeful house. Read an excerpt of the collection here.
AN AFRICAN HISTORY OF AFRICA: FROM THE DAWN OF HUMANITY TO INDEPENDENCE
AUTHOR: ZEINAB BADAWI
PUBLISHER: W. H. ALLEN
GENRE: NON-FICTION
In An African History of Africa, Zeinab Badawi guides us through Africa’s spectacular history, from the origins of humanity, through ancient civilisations and mediaeval empires with powerful queens and kings, to the miseries of conquest and the elation of independence. Seeking out occluded histories from across the continent, meeting with countless historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and local storytellers, and travelling through more than thirty countries, Badawi weaves together a fascinating new account of an epic, sweeping history of the oldest inhabited continent on the planet, told through the voices of Africans themselves.
Determined to avoid the pain and instability of her parents’ turbulent marriage, Kokui marries a man far different from her loving, philandering, self-made father—and tries to be a different kind of wife from her mother. But when Kokui and her husband leave Ghana to make a new life for themselves in America, she finds history repeating itself. Her marriage failing, she is called home to Ghana when her father dies. Back in her childhood home, which feels both familiar and discomforting, she comes to realize that to exorcize the ghost of her parents’ marriage she must confront them, not only to enable her own healing, but for the sake of her daughter who is considering a marriage proposal of her own. Tender and illuminating, warm and bittersweet, My Parents’ Marriage by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond is a compelling story of family, community, class, and self-identity from an author with deep empathy and a generous heart.
Chronicling the beauty and turmoil of a rapidly changing Cameroon, Days Come and Go is the remarkable story of three generations of women both within and beyond its borders. Through the voices of Anna, a matriarch living out her final days in Paris; Abi, Anna’s thoroughly European daughter (at least in her mother’s eyes); and Tina, a teenager who comes under the sway of a militant terrorist faction, Boum’s epic is generous and all-seeing. Brilliantly considering the many issues that dominate her characters’ lives—love and politics, tradition, and modernity—Days Come and Go, in Nchanji Njamnsi’s vivid translation, is a page-turner. As passions rise, fall, and rise again, Boum’s poignant English-language debut offers a discerning portrait of a nation that never once diminishes the power of everyday human connection.
GLORY
AUTHOR: NOVIOLET BULAWAYO
PUBLISHER: VIKING
GENRE: FICTION
Glory centres around the unexpected fall of Old Horse, a long-serving leader of a fictional country, and the drama that follows for a rumbustious nation of animals on the path to true liberation. Inspired by the unexpected fall by the coup of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president of nearly four decades in November 2017, Bulawayo’s bold novel shows a country imploding, narrated by a chorus of animal voices who unveil the ruthlessness and cold strategy required to uphold the illusion of absolute power, and the imagination and bullet-proof optimism to overthrow it completely. This book immerses us in the daily life of a traumatised nation, revealing the dazzling life force and irrepressible wit that lies barely concealed beneath the surface of seemingly bleak circumstances. At the centre of this tumult is Destiny, who has returned to Jidada from exile to bear witness to revolution—and focus on the unofficial history and the potential legacy of the women who have quietly pulled the strings in this country. Cameroonian writer, Patrice Nganang, describes this novel as ‘a satirical presentation of the last days and weeks and months and years of Robert Mugabe, and the rise to power of the current Zimbabwean leader.’ He also thinks ‘history will read Mugabe with caution as it does Castro or Gaddafi for that matter (but Zimbabweans won’t listen to me, and my wife is from Zimbabwe), as independence is an endless struggle for Africans.’
LOSS IS AN AFTERTASTE OF MEMORIES
AUTHOR: MICHAEL CHIEDOZIEM CHUKWUDERA
PUBLISHER: MMUTA BOOKS
GENRE: FICTION
In this novel, Nosike remembers the final years of his childhood and his adolescence years, and the conflicts and delights that marked his life at the time. The scope of his narration, through memory, takes us through the complexities of family, friendship, religious upbringing, dreams, and conflicts, in the life of an adolescent, on such a pedestal that the topic becomes a consideration for people of all ages. It also shows the polaroid of the human experience and how our opinions on them are not final and are transient when viewed through the lens of memory. Chimezie Chika thinks this novel ‘has all the attributes of a significant new voice in Nigerian fiction and, at times, reminds me of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, one of my favourite works of fiction.’ Read our review of Loss is an Aftertaste of Memories here.
Ancci, an arts contributor at The Republic, recommends this poetry collection for two reasons: ‘First, most book listicles I see nowadays predominantly feature prose, and I would like to diversify the selection by including poetry now that I have the opportunity to do that. Second, this is one of the best books to come out of Nigeria that I have read recently, and it deserves all the attention it can get.’
Your Crib, My Qibla interrogates loss, the death of a child, and a father’s pursuit of language able to articulate grief. In this collection, Dzukogi crafts the extraordinary from the ordinary, transforming the familiar into something strange and, ultimately, the universal experience of loss into something profoundly memorable. Though rooted in the most devastating experience imaginable—losing one’s child—Dzukogi’s aesthetic integrity, realised through sound and intentional formal choices, makes this book essential reading. This artistic seriousness in the face of grief serves as compelling evidence that beauty, achieved through the careful, if painfully uneasy, recollection and representation of the dead, is our only revenge against the forces of our most visceral afflictions—death being the foremost among them.
No matter how hard Samira tries, she cannot shake her reputation. She has never gotten the benefit of the doubt—not from her mother or the aunties who watch her like a hawk. Samira is determined to have a perfect summer filled with fun parties, exploring DC, and growing as a poet—until a scandalous rumour has her grounded and unable to leave her house. When Samira turns to a poetry forum for solace, she catches the eye of an older, charismatic poet named Horus. For the first time, Samira feels wanted. But soon she is keeping a bigger secret than ever before—one that could prove her reputation and jeopardize her place in her community. In this gripping coming-of-age novel by Safia Elhillo, a young woman searches to find the balance between honouring her family, her artistry, and her authentic self.
Nigerian writer David Emeka heaps praises on Ibeh’s debut, stating, ‘With prose so assured and enchanting, as if woven from the wonder of leisurely afternoons, Ibeh’s bildungsroman saga achieves that rare feat: a classic.’
In Blessings, we meet Obiefuna—sensitive where his father, Anozie, is pragmatic, a dancer where his brother, Ekene, is a natural athlete. But when an intimate connection blossoms between Obiefuna and a boy from a nearby village, happiness is fleeting once his father catches them together and banishes him to boarding school. Obiefuna finds and hides who he truly is as he navigates his new school’s strict hierarchy and unpredictable violence. Back home, his mother Uzoamaka must contend with the absence of her beloved son, her husband’s cryptic reasons for sending him away, and the hard truths that they have all been hiding from. As Nigeria teeters on the brink of criminalizing same-sex relationships, Obiefuna’s life, or the life he wants to live, becomes even further out of reach and more dangerous than ever before. Told from the alternating perspectives of Obiefuna and Uzoamaka, Blessings is an elegant and exquisitely moving story that asks how to live freely in a country that forbids one’s truest self, and the love that can flourish in spite of it all.
Uchenna Nnabugwu also adds that Blessings is ‘one of those books I am glad it exists, and a reminder of the different lives queer people in Nigeria live. A reminder that queer people have been here and will continue to be here.’ Read our review of this novel here.
Osione Oseni-Elamah, Editor at The Republic, typically gravitates toward romance novels, but When We Were Fireflies ‘captured my heart in a way no other book has this year.’ For Oseni-Elamah, ‘This enchanting blend of magical realism tells the compelling story of Yarima Lalo, an artist whose journey through different lives intertwines themes of love, loss, and self-discovery. The artist confronts the reality that he died in previous lives because of love. While love remains central, the author skilfully navigates complex issues like terminal illness, death, reincarnation, and the quest for identity. The narrative, set against the backdrops of Abuja, Jos, Kafanchan, and Kano, offers glimpses into historical events and everyday life in diverse settings. The vivid descriptions, especially of Abuja where I reside, allow me to visualize the story with remarkable clarity.’
Able God works for low pay at a four-star hotel where he must flash his ‘toothpaste-white smile’ for wealthy guests. When not tending to the hotel’s over-privileged clientele, he muses over self-help books and draws life lessons from the game of chess. But Able’s ordinary life is upended when an early morning room service order leads him to interfere with Akudo, a sex worker involved with a powerful but dangerous hotel guest. Suddenly caught in a web of violence, guilt, and fear, Able must run to save himself—a journey that leads him into the desert with a group of drug-addled migrants, headed by a charismatic religious leader calling himself Ben Ten. The travellers’ dream of reaching Europe—and a new life—is shattered when they fall prey to human traffickers, suffer starvation, and find themselves on the precipice of death, fighting for their lives and their freedom.
According to Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, The Road to the Salt Sea ‘reads like a thriller as it brings to heart-thumping, heart-shredding life the headlines we’ve seen about the enslavement of sub-Saharan Africans in Libya and the drownings of African migrants in Lampedusa.’ As we follow Able God on his harrowing journey from Nigeria to Europe, ‘we are plunged into the anxieties, frustrations, exploitation, and mishaps that plague society’s most vulnerable. It is an important read.’
When Selasi and Akorfa were young girls in Ghana, they were more than just cousins; they were inseparable. Selasi was exuberant and funny, Akorfa quiet and studious. They would do anything for each other, imploring their parents to let them be together, sharing their secrets and desires and private jokes. Then Selasi begins to change, becoming hostile and quiet; her grades suffer, and she builds a space around herself, shutting Akorfa out. Meanwhile, Akorfa is accepted to an American university with the goal of becoming a doctor. Although hopeful that she can create a fuller life as a woman in America, she discovers the insidious ways that racism places obstacles in her path once she leaves Ghana. It takes a crisis to bring the friends back together, with Selasi’s secret revealed and Akorfa forced to reckon with her role in their estrangement. Nightbloom is a gripping and beautifully written novel attesting to the strength of female bonds in the face of societies that would prefer to silence women. According to Kikachi Memeh, whose review of this novel was published earlier this year, ‘Medie’s sophomore novel is a poignant read that resonates with readers familiar with complicated family dynamics.’
For Kikachi Memeh, Ndibe’s heartfelt memoir invites readers into the formative years of his career as a writer and editor. A journey between Nigeria and America, Ndibe paints colourful portraits of the instrumental figures and moments of his career; from a second chance interview with Chinua Achebe in his Nsukka residence to a not-so-meet-cute with Sheri Fafunwa at a party in Amherst. This memoir is an inspiring journey peppered with humorous and intense experiences.
It recounts stories of Ndibe’s relationships with Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and other literary figures; examines the differences between Nigerian and American etiquette and politics; recalls an incident of racial profiling just 13 days after he arrived in the US, in which he was mistaken for a bank robber; considers American stereotypes about Africa (and vice-versa); and juxtaposes African folk tales with Wall Street trickery.
Set in Nigeria in the late 1960s, The Road to the Country is the epic story of a shy, bookish student haunted by long-held guilt who must go to war to free himself. When his younger brother disappears as the country explodes into civil war, Kunle must set out on an impossible rescue mission. Kunle’s search for his brother becomes a journey of atonement that will see him conscripted into the breakaway Biafran army and forced to fight a war he hardly understands, all while navigating the prophecies of a local Seer, he who marks Kunle as an abami eda—one who will die and return to life. The story of a young man seeking redemption in a country on fire, Chigozie Obioma’s novel is an odyssey of brotherhood, love, and unimaginable courage set during one of the most devastating conflicts in the history of Africa. Read our review of Obioma’s novel here.
A searing, unflinching collection of stories set in Nigeria that explores themes of community expectations, familial strife, and the struggle for survival. Set in contemporary Nigeria, Okonkwo’s A Kind of Madness is a collection of ten stories concerned with literal madness but also those private feelings that, when left unspoken, can feel like a type of desire, desperation, hunger, fear, sadness, shame, longing. In these stories, a young woman and her mother bask in the envy of their neighbours when the woman receives an offer of marriage from the family of a doctor living in Belgium―though when the offer fails to materialize, that envy threatens to turn vicious, pitting them both against their village. A teenage girl from a poor family is dazzled by her rich, vivacious friend, but as the friend’s behaviour grows unstable and dangerous, she must decide whether to cover for her or risk telling the truth to get her the help she needs. And a lonely daughter finds herself wandering a village in eastern Nigeria in an ill-fated quest, struggling to come to terms with her mother’s mental illness. In vivid, evocative prose, A Kind of Madness unravels the tensions between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, best friends, siblings, and more, marking the arrival of an extraordinary new talent in fiction and inviting us all to consider the why is it that the people and places we hold closest are so often the ones that drive us to madness? Nigerian novelist and author of Blessings, Chukwuebuka Ibeh loved this book ‘just on account of its chaotic plotlines’. Read our review of this collection here.
It is the ten-year anniversary of her sister’s death, and Nia is grappling with her grief, and balancing the complicated relationships weaving through her life. There is smart and sexy Temi; Melvin, her teenage love; and her new yet intimate friendship with Rahul and Crystal. But looming large over everything is her mother SuSu, whose battle with bipolar disorder continues to cast a profound shadow over Nia. Delving deep into the intricate tapestry of Nia’s life, Like Water Like Sea is a poignant tale of self-discovery and resilience, sexuality, motherhood, and falling apart to become truly whole. Read an excerpt of this book here.
AND THEN HE SANG A LULLABY
AUTHOR: ANI KAYODE SOMTOCHUKWU
PUBLISHER: ROXANE GAY BOOKS
GENRE: FICTION
August is a God-fearing track star who leaves Enugu City to attend university and escape his overbearing sisters. He carries the weight of their lofty expectations, the shame of facing himself, and the haunting memory of a mother he never knew. It is his first semester and pressures aside, August is making friends, doing well in his classes. He even almost has a girlfriend. There is only one problem: he cannot stop thinking about Segun, an openly gay student who works at a local cybercafé. Segun carries his own burdens and has been wounded in too many ways. When he meets August, their connection is undeniable, but Segun is reluctant to open himself up to August. He wants to love and be loved by a man who is comfortable in his own skin, who will see and hold and love Segun, exactly as he is.
Despite their differences, August and Segun forge a tender intimacy that defies the violence around them. But there is only so long Segun can stand being loved behind closed doors, while August lives a life beyond the world they have created together. And when a new, sweeping anti-gay law is passed, August and Segun must find a way for their love to survive in a Nigeria that was always determined to eradicate them. A tale of rare bravery and profound beauty, And Then He Sang a Lullaby is an extraordinary debut that marks Ani as a voice to watch.
Editor at The Republic, Adebayo Quadry-Adekanbi, thinks this book is an important addition to Nigerian literature because of how it tells a simple story that is fundamentally about love within the complex terrain of Nigeria’s socio-political climate. ‘It engages with themes of class, queerphobia, agency, community, and, of course, love. I think it is a must-read for people hoping to get a snapshot into some of the complexities of queer life in Nigeria,’ Quadry-Adekanbi adds.
Containing brand-new stories, rewrites of early work, and a few previously published pieces, Wole Talabi’s new collection, Convergence Problems, consists of sixteen short stories and one previously unseen novella. All the stories in this collection are set in, or relate to, Africa, and investigate the rapidly changing role of technology in our lives as we search for meaning, for knowledge, for justice; constantly converging to our future selves.
In Lagos, Nigeria, a roadside mechanic volunteers to undergo a procedure that will increase the electrical conductivity of his skin by orders of magnitude. On Mars, a woman races against time and a previously undocumented geological phenomenon to save her brother. In Nairobi, a tech support engineer tries to understand what is happening when an AI system begins malfunctioning in ways that could change the world.
Nigerian novelist and author of Like Water Like Sea, Olumide Popoola, calls These Letters End in Tears by Musih Tedji Xaviere her must-read book by an African author in 2024. ‘It is a stunning read with a compelling storyline that keeps you turning the pages, eager to discover what happened to Fati, the main character’s love who disappeared over a decade ago. We follow Besem, the protagonist, with bated breath as she takes great risks to uncover the truth. This is an important story of queer expression, community, and love in Cameroon—at times funny, at others heartbreaking, but always beautiful and satisfyingly rich,’ Popoola adds.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF’S PICKS
In the Shadow of a Saint by Ken Wiwa (Biography)
Tomorrow Died Yesterday by Chimeka Garricks (Fiction)
Oil on Water by Helon Habila (Fiction)
Ken Saro-Wiwa (Ohio Short Histories of Africa) by Toyin Falola and Roy Doron (Historical Non-Fiction)
A Month and a Day: A Detention Diary by Ken Saro Wiwa (Memoir)
The Republic’s editor-in-chief, Wale Lawal has been working on the second season of The Republic’s podcast, which is out later this year. The books above have helped shape crucial parts of Lawal’s research. According to Lawal,
We know that Ken Saro-Wiwa was a groundbreaking writer and a prominent environmental activist who was killed in 1995 by the General Sani Abacha regime. But nearly 30 years after he was executed, so many questions about him remain unanswered: why did he support Nigeria during the civil war? What drew him to activism and how did his prominence shape his life at home with his family? Saro-Wiwa also had critics; he was, after all, the administrator of the oil rich Bonny city, during the civil war. But what did his critics think of him and just how much of their criticism holds weight? How does his legacy today complicate what it means to be Nigerian? A mix of fiction and historical non-fiction, these books provided a multi-dimensional framework for engaging with Saro-Wiwa and the broader evolution of narratives surrounding oil in the Niger Delta.
Additional standouts from Wale Lawal’s reading list:
Adam by Gboyega Odubanjo (Poetry)
The African Gaze by Amy Sall (Photography)⎈