The Books 10 Writers Think Everyone Should Read From Their Countries

Books

Photo Collage from Original Book Covers by Ijapa O / THE REPUBLIC.

the REPUBLIC INTERVIEWS / FIRST DRAFT
In our past First Draft interviews, we asked leading African writers to share the books from their countries that everyone should read. Here’s what they told us.
Books

Photo Collage from Original Book Covers by Ijapa O / THE REPUBLIC.

the REPUBLIC INTERVIEWS / FIRST DRAFT
In our past First Draft interviews, we asked leading African writers to share the books from their countries that everyone should read. Here’s what they told us.

Writers have a special ability to translate the spirit and soul of a place into pages. Beyond describing landmarks or city structures, they can tell you about the lives that inhibit these spaces. So, if you’re looking to learn about a country, reading its literature is a great place to start—and who better to recommend books than the writers themselves? 

That’s why in our First Draft column at The Republic, we ask African writers to share the books from their countries that everyone should read. This way, we have discovered new, relatively obscure books from different parts of the continent that we probably might never have discovered otherwise. From the Sierra Leonean writer who recommends three ‘underexposed’ books about his country to a South African author who wax poetic about the South African books she loves, these writers ensure our reading list is as diverse as possible!  

Here are ten writers and the books they recommend from their countries. 

AYESHA HARUNA ATTAH (GHANA)

His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie, The Year of Return by Akotowaa Ivana Ofori, and My Parents’ Marriage by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond. Read Attah’s full interview here. 

CAREY BARAKA (KENYA)

Things They Lost by Okwiri Oduor is a favourite both for all the music in the book as well as the liminality of the language. Dust by Yvonne Owuor is the great Kenyan novel, and I also really enjoyed Coming to Birth by Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye: it is a novel I have read many times. Read Baraka’s full interview here. 

CHIMEZIE CHIKA (NIGERIA)

 Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s When We Were Fireflies. Noo Saro-Wiwa’s Black Ghosts. Ike Anya’s Small by Small. Read Chika’s full interview here. 

NADIA DAVIDS (SOUTH AFRICA)

The Island, by Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, is one of South Africa’s most famous and beloved plays—and rightly so. I saw a performance of it in 1995 with the original cast; I was a teenager, and it transformed my understanding of theatre. In the play, two men, political activists, are imprisoned on ‘the island’ (an unnamed Robben Island). The prisoners spend their days performing futile, humiliating physical labour and their nights dreaming about freedom and rehearsing for a performance of SophoclesAntigone in front of the other prisoners. The play is a dazzling syncretic merging of various theatrical forms, from South African workshop theatre to Polish theatre theorist Jerzy Grotowski’s stripped-down Poor Theatre, to a classical Greek play about war, resistance, ancestry, dignity and land to create a singular work.  

My next pick is Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa, edited by Gabeba Baderoon and Desiree Lewis. It is a riveting, rich collection of writing from some of the finest, most radical and interesting Black feminist scholars writing, thinking and creating change in South Africa today. Poets, theorists, activists, assemble in this book to reflect on girlhood, representation, divinity and intellectual lifeit’s wonderful!  

Rustm Kozain’s poetry collection, This Carting Life is another great book. It is an exquisite collection from one of the continent’s best poets.   

Njabulo Ndebele’s Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African Literature and Culture is my final pick. Professor Ndebele’s scholarship and creative writing is ground-breaking and unmatched. Read David’s full interview here. 

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PEDE HOLLIST (SIERRA LEONE)

Three excellent but underrated or underexposed books are:    

So Pretty an African, a novel by Hannah Khoury. Sadly, this book is no longer in print.  

The Freetown Bond, a memoir by Eldred Jones  

A Dirty War in West Africa, a work of nonfiction by Lansana Gberie. Read Hollist’s full interview here. 

CHUKWUEBUKA IBEH (NIGERIA)

Chinua Achebe’s The Trouble with Nigeria, Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, and Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun.  Read Ibeh’s full interview here. 

ARINZE IFEAKANDU (NIGERIA)

Logan February’s Painted Blue with Saltwater, Helon Habila’s Measuring Time, and Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo’s fast-paced beauty, The Tiny Things Are Heaviest, set for release in June 2025. Read Ifeakandu’s full interview here. 

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WAYÉTU MOORE (LIBERIA)

Read Patricia Jabbeh Wesley’s poetry, Vamba Sherif’s Bound to Secrecy, and of course, Helene Cooper’s The House at Sugar Beach. Each of them offers a unique lens into Liberia’s many layers. Read Moore’s full interview here. 

DENNIS MUGAA (KENYA)

I think everyone should read Britain’s Gulag by Caroline Elkins. It is about the concentration camps that the British set up in Kenya in the 1950s, when freedom fighters were fighting against colonization. The British went to such great lengths to delete from history the crimes that they committed during this period, and for a long time those stories only remained with the victims. They had not been recognized as crimes as they should have been. The second book is, of course, Binyavanga Wainaina’s One Day I’ll Write About This Place. I like it because it is such a simple book to read. Lastly, a contemporary book I enjoyed reading last year was Troy Onyango’s collection of stories For What Are Butterflies Without Their Wings. Read Mugaa’s full interview here. 

PATRICE NGANANG (CAMEROON)

I have read good books by Cameroonian authors Leonora Miano, Max Lobe, Hemley Boum, Djaili Amadou Amal, and Imbolo Mbue. I recommend their works if you are interested in reading about Cameroon. Read Nganang’s full interview here

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