Great African Reads discussion

Welcome to the 2025 African bingo challenge!

The rules are simple: Join for as many or as few books as you like from this challenge - cross off a row in any direction - or go for as many as your heart desires?



Here is a list of the categories to copy:
A Short Story
By a Nigerian Author
From a recommendation list
From Eastern Africa
Free Choice
Non-fiction
Poetry or Genre Fiction
Female prize winner
Not Written in English

Category clarifications in the post below!

Feel free to personalize your challenge - if you like you can most of these Non-fiction, or read only works by female authors, or with a specific theme or in a favorite genre, make 'em all oldies or brand new fiction - or just mix & match, the point here is just to have fun and read more Great African Reads - and not least share recommendations with fellow group members.

Categories:
A Short Story
Any short story written by an African author or about Africa - and yes the diaspora always count as well.
Most if not all of the Caine Prize winning short stories are free online: https://www.caineprize.com/

By a Nigerian Author
Any book written by a Nigerian (in or out of Nigeria).

From a recommendation list
A book recommended on a list - please share these recommendations lists below, as we all love to get more reading inspiration. Pick it of any list you like (could be off a Goodreads group member's reading list if you like?) Here are a few suggestions for inspiration:
https://opencountrymag.com/the-antici...
https://brittlepaper.com/2024/12/anno...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/7...
Or maybe one of the african titles off this https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

From Eastern Africa
Any book written by an east African author (diaspora included) or about any place in East Africa.

Free Choice
Pick a book, any book :)

Non-fiction
By an African author or about Africa & African matters.

Poetry or Genre Fiction
Read some African poetry, or if that's not your thing, how about crime fiction? Sci-fi? Romance? Horror? A combination?

Female prize winner
A work by a female prize winner or a prize winning book

Not Written in English
A book not originally written in English, though you are more than welcome to read it in English translation (or any other language).

The Caine Prize winning entry from last year@ www caineprize com >Bridling by Nadia Davids was a short but very compelling read. Only 18 pages in pdf form, you can read it in a sitting. Very good.

Is it a reading challenge, or should we just idenfify the books. What is the prize?

Leo wrote: "The Caine Prize winning entry from last year@ www caineprize com >Bridling by Nadia Davids was a short but very compelling read. Only 18 pages in pdf form, you can read it in a sitting. Very good."

Please just tell me the title and author, and I will read it with my students. Also, let me know how the author can encourage students who might want to write a literary analysis or research paper on the story. The magazine is considering a few authors. Though your books may be cited in the same paper, we work with authors independently—this is a low-budget, nonprofit magazine.

World wrote: "Is it a reading challenge, or should we just idenfify the books. What is the prize?"

The prize is you read more books - and possibly discuss it with like-minded readers :) Fin the individual challenges and see what titles people select in the folder https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

Leo wrote: "The Caine Prize winning entry from last year@ www caineprize com >Bridling by Nadia Davids was a short but very compelling read. Only 18 pages in pdf form, you can read it in a sitting. Very good."

Nice rec - thank you Leo!