Great African Reads discussion

Such a great challenge! Joining late as I hadn't quite completed my list by 31 December - oops.
My list is a bit Maghreb-heavy as I try to get to the books which have been sitting on my shelves for months (years)... And a few are set by author rather than a specific book as it will be whatever I can get my hands on at the libraries near me at that time...

1. Nouvelles du Soudan (Sudan) **
2. The Yacoubian Building (Egypt) ***
3. Une si longue lettre (Senegal)
4. Les Prépondérants (Morocco)
5. Crépuscule du tourment (Cameroon) *****
6. Une paix à vivre, Rachid Mimouni (Algeria)
7. L'Amour, la fantasia or Oran, langue morte (Algeria)
8. Les chercheurs d'os (Algeria)
9. L'effacement (Algeria)
10. Terre Des Femmes (Algeria)
11. L’ Interdite (Algeria) ****
12. La Vie sexuelle d'un islamiste à Paris (Algeria) *
13. Oeuvre Poetique (Senegal) -> read Chants d'ombre suivi de Hosties noires ***
14. Precolonial Black Africa (Senegal) *****
15. La Grande Maison (Algeria)
16. either Nedjma or Le Polygone étoilé (Algeria)
17. A book by Véronique Tadjo (Cote d'Ivoire) -> replaced by Transparent City by Ondjaki)
18. Our Sister Killjoy or another book by Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana) -> read: The Dilemma of a Ghost and Anowa ****
19. Stay with Me (Nigeria) ****
20. Homegoing (Ghana)
21. A book by Alain Mabanckou, probably Black Moses (Congo)
22. Death and the King's Horseman (Nigeria)
23. A book by Buchi Emecheta (Nigeria) -> read The Bride Price ***1/2
24. Maru or The Lovers: A Collection of Short Stories (South Africa/Botswana) -> read Tales Of Tenderness And Power ****

Edited out in June due to availability issues:
Nervous Conditions (Zimbabwe)
L'aventure ambiguë (Senegal)
Les Bouts De Bois De Dieu (Senegal) *****

Great list, Cam! I’m focussing on the Maghreb for the African Trek Challenge so it was really interesting to go through your list.

Cam, feel free to finish your list. You have some books on your list I need to explore further. I am trying to get back into the habit of reading French. I read Homegoing, Nervous Conditions, Les Bouts De Bois De Dieu, and Une si longue lettre. All of them are great books.

Thank you both!

Sofia my DZ shelf is just for Algerian books if you want more inspiration, although the list is skewed towards literature written in French rather than Arabic.

Ooh thanks Cam! 😊 *off to take a look at your shelves*

January: Leïla Marouane (2007) La vie sexuelle d'un islamiste à Paris

I was expecting social satire but instead got a collection of racist tropes and lazy stereotypes framed by a bizarre psychological metafiction story. I'm just glad it's off my shelves!

Points: 1

Oh no. It sounded so good. I’ll take it off my shelves as well. Really not interested in reading a novel with racist tropes and lazy stereotypes.

Yikes! Thanks for reading it so we don't have to! :D

Hahaha Tinea, yes it went straight into the recycling bin.

Sofia I'm so disappointed as well! Knowing that it's often in recommended lists about the North African diaspora / immigration / France makes me very uneasy...

February: L'immeuble Yacoubian

This book reads a bit like a roman de gare, one of these novels you pick up at a train station for a long journey when you don't want to think too much. The characters correspond to a series of "types" which are described at length (the greedy outwardly-devout businessman-politician, the hardworking poor student turned protester, the sleezy old man whose family used to be rich and important before the revolution, the dutiful young woman who ends up selling her body to her employers...), and the overly descriptive tone of the omniscient narrator means there isn't much character development. The women only exist through a man's penis (only one woman isn't described having sex, but she serves as the old bitter harridan counterpart to the others who "realise" how much the men need to be taken care of). It just gets boring very quickly...
For showing life in an apartment building in 1990s North Africa, I much preferred Fellag's L'allumeur de rêves berbères.

Points: 2
***

March: L'Interdite ****

An exploration of loss, exile and belonging set within early 1990s south-western Algeria. An interesting companion to other novels set within the time period but written by Algerian men who were actually living in Algeria at the time (L'allumeur de rêves berbères 1994). Luckily, this book was better than the misleading/Orientalist blurb on the back of the French and English editions...

Points: 4

Cam wrote: "January: Leïla Marouane (2007) La vie sexuelle d'un islamiste à Paris

I was expecting social satire but instead got a collection of racist tropes and lazy stereotypes framed by a bizarre psycholog..."

Thanks for sharing your impressions of the book, I deleted it from my wish list😨

April: The Dilemma of a Ghost and Anowa ****

Beautifully written and thoroughly enjoyable to read, how are these two plays not put on more!? Both have a couple at their centre, and both deal with themes of expectations and values and how the individual and the group feed off each other. All very ubuntu (I am because you are, you are because we are), without saying the word. Excellent

Points: 6

May: Stay with Me ****
I admit to being skeptical about this book before starting it, both because it had become so popular as to be a book club staple across Europe, and because I tend to get very bored by tales of motherhood. The book is a quick if slightly stifling read, with a flowy writing style and a fine balance maintained between the relatively fast pace of narration and the slower examination of mental health issues arising for all characters. I found the exploration of adult relationships particularly interesting, and through my lens the whole pregnancy/motherhood theme was just the backdrop on which these relationships developed, transformed, stretched, ripped or re-twisted themselves.

Points: 9

June: Tales Of Tenderness And Power ***1/2, rounded up to ****
Another good one! The back cover blurb does describe the collection as "an anthology of stories, personal observations and historic legends", which is fitting and had I read it before launching into the book, would have spared me a bit of confusion. I really enjoy Bessie Head's writing, and the later tales are much stronger than the earlier ones.