African Literature

[RitalinKid]

Yeah, I liked Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. He's pretty good at putting facts into an almost story-like form.

 

[Prairie_Girl]

I loved the two Bryson America books, Lost Continent and I'm a Stranger here Myself but HATED Sunburnt Country

 

[beer good]

Zukiswa Wanner's top five African writers | Books | guardian.co.uk

 

[Belial]

I've enjoyed the "Things Fall Apart" already mentioned. A powerful and sad book. A book that I'll surely read again and again. Good to see some suggestions for other books.

 

[Meadow337]

Long Walk to Freedom is worth reading but it's a long read, that really does drag in places.

Alan Paton is the voice of an era and you can't not read his books.

He has a number of non-fiction books as well:

Cry, The Beloved Country, 1948 - made into a film in 1951, directed by Zoltan Korda with a screenplay by Paton himself; in 1995, directed by Darrell Roodt; also a musical and an opera
Lost in the Stars 1950 (with Maxwell Anderson - set to music by Kurt Weill)
Too Late the Phalarope, 1953
The Land and People of South Africa, 1955
South Africa in Transition, 1956
Debbie Go Home, 1960
Tales from a Troubled Land, 1961
Hofmeyr, 1964
South African Tragedy, 1965
Spono, 1965 (with Krishna Shah)
The Long View, 1967
Instrument of Thy Peace, 1968
Kontakio For You Departed, 1969 (also: For You Departed)
Case History of a Pinky, 1972
Apartheid and the Archbishop: the Life and Times of Geoffrey Clayton, Archbishop of Cape Town, 1973
Knocking on the Door, 1975
Towards the Mountain, 1980
Ah, but Your Land is Beautiful, 1981
Journey Continued: An Autobiography, 1988
Save the Beloved Country, 1989
The Hero of Currie Road: the complete short pieces, 2008 [6]
​

Other authors you might want to look at are:

Andre Brink - best known for A Dry White Season

Herman Charles Bosman - primarily wrote short stories but they are incredibly funny

Sir Laurens van der Post - His books don't exactly fit an easy categorisation - part history, part local folk tale, part philosophy

In a Province; novel (1934).
Venture to the Interior; travel (1952).
The Face Beside the Fire; novel (1953).
A Bar of Shadow; novella (1954).
Flamingo Feather; novel (1955).
The Dark Eye in Africa; politics, psychology (1955).
The Lost World of the Kalahari; travel (1958) [BBC 6-part TV series, 1956].
The Heart of the Hunter; travel, folklore (1961).
The Seed and the Sower; three novellas (1963).
A Journey into Russia (US title: A View of All the Russias); travel (1964).
A Portrait of Japan; travel (1968).
The Night of the New Moon (US title: The Prisoner and the Bomb); wartime memoirs (1970).
A Story Like the Wind; novel (1972).
A Far-Off Place; novel, sequel to the above (1974).
Jung and the Story of Our Time; psychology, memoir (1975).
Yet Being Someone Other; memoir, travel (1982).
A Walk with A White Bushman; interview-transcripts (1986).​

Dalene Matthee is also an excellent read:

Kringe in 'n bos (Circles in a forest) (1984)
Fiela se Kind (Fiela's Child) (1985)
Moerbeibos (The Mulberry Forest) (1987)
Toorbos (Dream Forest) (2003)​

 

[Bullyboy]

It just struck me that there really isn't much in the way of "light" material out there on Africa, is there? Not that I was looking for that, which is just as well!Hmm, this little reading jaunt may actually be mind-boggling

As you discover the history of Africa...after the coming of the whites it was all downhill from there, not too many ways to lighten that up I'm afraid...of course there is much history written about Africa before colonization as well. I would suggest starting with Alex Haley's "Roots". I second "Things Fall Apart", also "Kaffir Boy".

 

[Meadow337]

after the coming of the whites it was all downhill from there,

While colonialism was not always the best thing, there was also some good along with the evils and I object to this general categorisation that the Whites are to blame for every wrong thing in Africa. I entirely fail to see why there is no responsibility for actions taken by Black people in their own countries and perpetuated by and against their own people.

As for Alex Haley 'Roots' good book, but at the same time I am honestly fed up with the biased and one sided view of slavery. A. Arabs were slave traders in Africa for centuries before Whites got the not-so-bright idea to do the same and B. Whites did not penetrate deep into the interior of Africa. It was African tribes who warred on other tribes and transported the captives to the coast to sell, first to Arabs then to johnny-come-lately Whites. But that side of history is just ignored in the blame game. There are no innocents in the Slave Trade - Blacks did it, Whites did it, Arabs did it, the Chinese did it. I'm not sure there is any nation in the world that didn't practice slavery in some form or the other at one time in their history. The Romans did it, the Greeks did it, the Vikings did it .... so yeah please lets be accurate about the facts.

 

[Bullyboy]

While colonialism was not always the best thing, there was also some good along with the evils and I object to this general categorisation that the Whites are to blame for every wrong thing in Africa. I entirely fail to see why there is no responsibility for actions taken by Black people in their own countries and perpetuated by and against their own people.

As for Alex Haley 'Roots' good book, but at the same time I am honestly fed up with the biased and one sided view of slavery. A. Arabs were slave traders in Africa for centuries before Whites got the not-so-bright idea to do the same and B. Whites did not penetrate deep into the interior of Africa. It was African tribes who warred on other tribes and transported the captives to the coast to sell, first to Arabs then to johnny-come-lately Whites. But that side of history is just ignored in the blame game. There are no innocents in the Slave Trade - Blacks did it, Whites did it, Arabs did it, the Chinese did it. I'm not sure there is any nation in the world that didn't practice slavery in some form or the other at one time in their history. The Romans did it, the Greeks did it, the Vikings did it .... so yeah please lets be accurate about the facts.

I suppose one's global perspective might also be colored by one's own ethnicity as well...

 

[Meadow337]

I suppose one's global perspective might also be colored by one's own ethnicity as well...

That would be part of the biased view I meant. History as told by some people is that big bad white folks came to Africa, wrenched the poor innocent black folks from its bosom and perpetuated all manner of evils on them. I am in no way endorsing or excusing any of the multiplicity of evils of slavery but that simplistic view is just plain wrong. If there ever is to be full healing there first has to be truth.

 

[Conscious Bob]

That would be part of the biased view I meant. History as told by some people is that big bad white folks came to Africa, wrenched the poor innocent black folks from its bosom and perpetuated all manner of evils on them. I am in no way endorsing or excusing any of the multiplicity of evils of slavery but that simplistic view is just plain wrong. If there ever is to be full healing there first has to be truth.

Not so much black and white but shades of gray.

 

[Meadow337]

Not so much black and white but shades of gray.

many!