Africa Reading Challenge 2012
A friend recently made me aware of the Africa Reading Challenge for 2012. The original rules can be found listed here, but as you will find, I have twisted several of them in order to suit myself. In the first place, I will not be restricting myself to six books, as she has done. I will be reading fourteen books over the course of the year, taking my selections from North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, South Africa, and the Island Nations. I have endeavored, where possible, to include work from the literary heavyweights of each region, as well as more contemporary work. I have also included male and female voices, fiction and non-fiction, and an anthology of short stories. Poetry, I have neglected, because I am impatient with it. I will be posting reviews of each book here.
Now presenting the list:
North Africa:
Minaret by Leila Aboulela (Sudan, Fiction)
Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih (Sudan, Fiction)
Central Africa:
King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Terrorism by Adam Hochschild (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Historical Narrative)
Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou (Republic of the Congo, Fiction)
East Africa:
Waiting: A Novel of Uganda’s Hidden War by Goretti Kyomyuhendo (Uganda, Fiction)
One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanaga Wainaina (Kenya, Memoir)
Devil on the Cross by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (Kenya, Fiction)
South Africa:
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (South Africa, Fiction)
The Bang Bang Club by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva (South Africa, Memoir)
West Africa:
Open City by Teju Cole (Nigeria, Fiction)
Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria, Fiction)
The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter’s Quest by Aminatta Forna (Sierra Leone, Memoir)
The Island Nations:
The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah (Mauritius, Fiction)
Africa Complete:
The Granta Book of the African Short Story, Edited by Helon Habila
Wish me luck? 🙂
Hey!!! I have six books. hehe. But fourteen? ela good luck, man. I can’t wait to read the reviews!
Oh, my bad. Six. 😛 Let me change it in the post.
You really do take on a challenge. 5 books were simply not going to cut it. Wish you the best with all 14.
Thank you! 🙂 The funny thing is that I’ll probably pick up a few extras along the way.
I just realized you are writing on here again, I’m so happy! 🙂 Now I have to read all the books you wrote about.
Hope all is well!
– Lev
Yay! Hi Lev! Yes, I’m writing here again. I hope you enjoy the books that I’ve picked out.
Hope all is well with you too! 🙂
Your list is giving me excitement! I read King Leopold’s Ghost about 7 years ago but it really stays with you. I am excited about Mabanckou’s work , I have heard so much about it – cant wait for your review.
Obviously, we must compare notes on Wainaina. So far I am just about ready to have his children 🙂
I wanted to pick Coetzee for the second half of the year (after reading Teju Cole’s letters), but I don’t want to restrict myself to just South Africa…
I love that you have “Island Nations” too!
Basically, great list. Psyched for the comments and reviews to follow!
I’m glad you’re psyched, Char. Thanks for putting me onto this! 🙂
I had the same qualms about doing only South Africa, but then I remembered that I finished reading “Nervous Conditions” in Jan., so the guilty feeling went away. 🙂
As for reviews, I hope you will write some too!
14 books, 52 weeks, that’s roughly a book every 3 and a half weeks. Hmm. Considering my current momentum with 6 weeks already gone, impossible! BUT, your list is looking very interesting.
I’ll take 4 from yours 🙂 (leaving room for other books that may take my fancy).
Granta, Open city, Waiting and Disgrace.
I will let you know how it goes.
Thank you for the list please 🙂
No problem! 🙂 Looking forward to hearing what you think of the books!
Yay!! I finally joined!!
Doing 5 for starts – how goes your list so far?
Got two empty slots on mine, any recommendations?
http://therisingpage.com/2012/06/africa-reading-challenge-2012/
I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I’ve only read 1 and 3/4 of the books listed here so far. I went into a Young Adult (YA) fiction phase and temporarily forgot about this challenge. Now that you’ve reminded me, I am going to attempt to read these ARC books in-between my YA books. The summer’s disappearing a lot faster than I expected it to.