*Ayi Renaud Dossavi, our Regional Editor for Our Africa Spotlight and Chair of the Young Writers Committee recommends reading suggestions below.
1. Kossi Efoui – Une Magie Ordinaire
- Nationality: Togolese (born in Togo, living in France since 1990)
- English version: No published English translation yet.
- Why read it: A semi-autobiographical, poetic novel where a mother urges her son to flee Togo, weaving exile, colonial trauma, and memory into a meditation on identity. The “ordinary magic” comes from transforming hardship into art and voice.
2. Ben Okri – La route de la faim (The Famished Road, (1991), Winner of the Booker Prize.)
- Nationality: Nigerian (also British)
- Why read it: For me, it’s a landmark in magical realism (narrated by Azaro, a spirit-child (abiku)). The characters experience the clash of politics, family struggles, and the spirit world in postcolonial Nigeria.
3. Amos Tutuola – L’Ivrogne dans la brousse (The Palm-Wine Drinkard(1952)
- Nationality: Nigerian
- Why read it: This book is strange, chaotic, and fun ! A folkloric, surreal quest where a man journeys into the land of the dead to retrieve his palm-wine tapster. Written in a distinctive blend of English and Yoruba storytelling, it’s a cult classic of African literature.
4. Mohamed Mbougar Sarr (Senegal)
a. La plus secrète mémoire des hommes (The Most Secret Memory of Men; english version published in 2023, translated by Lara Vergnaud)
- Why read it: This book is a literary mystery following a Senegalese writer in Paris as he investigates the life of a vanished author. It explores erasure, the African literary canon, and the legacy of colonialism. It subsequently won the Goncourt Prize.
b. Terre Ceinte (Brotherhood)
- It’s set in a town under jihadist rule, this is a tense, human story of resistance told through the grief of mothers and the defiance of clandestine writers.
5. Kangni Alem – Esclaves
- Nationality: Togolese
- English version: Not currently available in English.
- Why read it: A sweeping historical novel tracing the 19th-century slave trade from Dahomey to Brazil and Cuba, populated with kings, traders, ritual specialists, and enslaved people. A vivid re-imagining of a complex era.
6. V. Y. Mudimbe – L’Invention de l’Afrique (The Invention of Africa)
- Nationality: Congolese (Zairean) originally written in English (1988)
- Why read it: A seminal work of African philosophy, critiquing how Western thought—via missionaries, explorers, and scholars—constructed the very idea of “Africa,” shaping knowledge and identity in colonial and postcolonial times.
7. Fatou Diome - a Senegalese born novelist -The Belly of the Atlantic
Originally published in French in 2003 as Le Ventre de l’Atlantique, translated into English in 2006 tells the story of Salie, a Senegalese woman living in France, and her younger brother Madicke, who dreams of becoming a footballer in Europe. Through their exchanges, the novel explores illusions about migration, the lingering influence of colonialism, and the emotional ties between homeland and diaspora, offering both a critique of false hopes and a love letter to Senegalese culture.
8. Moses Isegawa - Ugandan-born novelist and a Dutch citizen- Abyssinian Chronicles
Ffirst published in Dutch in 1998, in English in 2001.
Striking and vivid work of novel.
Recommendations From Our Regional Writer and Organiser Mercy Kannemeyer from South Africa
1- Un Cadáver TambiĂ©n es un JardĂn - Pieter Odendaal
A Spanish translation of a selection from Pieter Odendaal's poems. Odendaal’s two anthologies, Asof geen berge ooit hier gewoon het nie and Ontaard, was received with great acclaim in not only the Afrikaans, but South African literary landscape. Jorge Alejandro Vargas Prado did the Spanish translation in collaboration with Odendaal. Queerness, identity, belonging, alienation and the climate crisis are some of the themes Odendaal explores in their body of work. PEN Afrikaans’s translation fund made this translation possible.
2-Die swerfjare van Poppie Nongena (The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena) by Elsa Joubert
A heart and gut wrenching telling of a woman, Poppie’s, struggles with the Apartheid government. Considered one of the best novels of the 21st century, Joubert paints a picture of Poppie that is so universal, that her singular experience became the experience of other black women who had to live and die under a brutal regime. The book calls the reader’s consciousness, morals, and humanity into question, and demands of us to treat each other with dignity.
3- Bientang (an epic poem) by Jolyn Phillips
Bientang was believed to have been a very spiritual being with supernatural powers and the ability to communicate with animals. Pods of whales would return year after year to this exact spot and remain here for months on end. We would like to believe that it is this same spirit of Bientang, which attracts the whales to Walker Bay each year. The spirit of Bientang remains with us. Perhaps you can feel it too!” (https://www.bientangscave.com/legend-of-bientang.php) Bientang wants to be experienced, she wants to walk a path with you, and then she will let you know whether you should bother her further or whether she wants to be left alone for a while. Bientang has been awakened and her riddle, her mystery, is being investigated. Phillips takes the reader on an epic journey and allows the reader to get to know Bientang intimately, while leaving room for interpretation and questions.
4-Tjieng Tjang Tjerries and Other Stories by Phillips
it’s a collection of short stories set in and around Gansbaai (a small coastal town in the Western Cape of South Africa). Phillips’s short stories are as striking as her poetry. She captures the people of Gansbaai in such a way, that even if you’ve never been to Gansbaai, you’ll recognise these characters. Their way of speaking, thinking, living, being and surviving lifts up from the page and goes and sits in the reader’s heart.
5-Ons is nie almal so nie (We are not all like that) by Jeanne Goosen
Tells the story of Doris, Piet, Mavis and Tank through the eyes of Doris and Piet’s five-year-old daughter, Gertie. Set in the early fifties in South Africa severe racial tension and injustice towards black and brown South Africans are commonplace. The characters we find in this novelle however have an interesting social position – they are poor whites in a time where whiteness in South Africa was held up as sovereign. These characters have no power. They might think that they do, but economically, politically, socially and in terms of class they’ve been left behind. In the midst of this brutal regime, laws that discriminate based on the colour of your skin, we meet Gertie’s mother, Doris, who just wants a better life. Her escapism is seen in how she navigates the world, offloading with her friends, having an affair, and finally throwing herself into a religious cult. What makes Ons is nie almal so nie a must read is the innocence through which the story is told. Goosen captures a time and place in South African history that cannot be forgotten making this novelle an irony-filled time capsule.
*Mercy kindly asked PEN Afrikaans’s Manager, Catrina Wessels, for a few recommendations as well. We are grateful for her suggestions below:
Catrina Wessel’s recommendations:
• Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk, of course one of the greatest Afrikaans novels. Derek Attridge writes about it: “Van Niekerk’s novel is an intimate yet radical engagement with Afrikaner culture that is at the same time a major contribution to the world’s literature.” Michiel Heyns did the translation.
• Decima by Eben Venter: he published it in Afrikaans and English. He is this year’s recipient of the Hertzog Prize and was awarded a SALA Prize for literary translation. It’s a rich novel, full of layers and voices, including that of the rhinoceros cow Decima. So moving! Also read this article by Eben Venter that he wrote for our article series: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-11-21-the-rhinoceros-and-the-rain-the-animal-that-does-not-sweat/
• And then of course there is the French translation of Kompoun by Ronelda Kamfer which was recently published! The information is here: https://editionszoe.ch/livre/le-cantonnement/
Further Useful Resources from our Regional Meeting
*Musa S. Sheriff was in attendance— PEN Gambia President, editor of Voice of Gambia Magazine https://www.voicegambia.com
*PEN South Africa President, Bongani Kona was part of our regional feature. To learn more from the centre you can visit their website below: https://pensouthafrica.co.za/
*https://www.facebook.com/centrepengonaives
*African Literature Ecosystem Used to Be Unstoppable. What Went Wrong?
https://www.okayafrica.com/african-literature-ecosystem-used-to-be-unstoppable-what-went-wrong/
*The Book Industry in Africa, UNESCO, 2025
https://publishsa.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/The-Book-Industry-in-Africa-UNESCO-2025.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063721773458
* The Edition of Livres En Folie Draws Thousands - Haitian Times
https://haitiantimes.com/2024/08/22/30th-edition-of-livres-en-folie-draws-thousands/
