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African literature is a mixed bag, including traditional oral forms and highly sophisticated contemporary novels. African writers have garnered awards and critical acclaim across the globe. This list (in no particular order) includes ten of the most celebrated works to have come out of Africa, and include works by writers across the continent. Though some would want to exclude descendants of colonial settlers, and writers in Arabic (like Mahfouz), in the twenty-first century the category is more inclusive, and the works of all of Africa’s residents is a welcome addition to the literary canon.

 

 Chinua Achebe (Nigeria).  Things Fall Apart, Achebe’s first novel, was published in 1958 and remains the most read of all African novels. It tells the story of Nigerian wrestler Okonkwo and the changing face of Igbo societies under colonialism.

 

J.M. Coetzee (South Africa). Twice winner of the Booker Prize (for The Life and Times of Michael K  in 1983 and Disgrace in 1999), the novelist and literary critic J.M. Coetzee is a Nobel prizewinning author whose innovative, spare prose has gained him a global following. His ‘fictional autobiograpy’ Summertime (2009) is shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2009.

 

Ben Okri (Nigeria). Another Nigerian novelist, Okri won the 1991 Booker Prize for his novel The Famished Road, with its themes of love and survival. It relates the story of Azaro, a spirit-child and his fight for life in a decaying part of an African city, shortly before independence.

 

Naguib Mahfouz  (Egypt).  Penned by another African winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Mahfouz’s The Cairo Trilogy tells the story of a Cairo family from 1919 to the end of the Second World War, documenting the social and political currents of that era. Mahfouz, a prolific writer in Arabic, died in 2006.

 

Alan Paton (South African). Paton’s anti-apartheid novel, Cry the Beloved Country, was published a matter of months after the Nationalist government, creators of apartheid, took power in 1948. This lyrical but tragic novel tells of an African priest’s search for his son, and analyses repressive political structures and the fear that perpetuates them.

 

Mariama Bâ (Senegal). Bâ (born 1929, died 1981) was a celebrated Senegalese writer whose works, originally in French, give insight into the lives and hardships of African women. Her partly autobiographical, epistolary novel So Long a Letter (Une Si Longue Lettre), published in 1979, has featured on a panel-judged list of Africa’s top twelve books.

 

Wole Soyinka (Nigeria). Africa’s first Nobel Laureate, Soyinka is known for his plays, poems and novels and a lifetime of political activism. Imprisoned by the Obasanjo regime, Soyinka lived abroad for many years. His latest memoir, published in 2006, is entitled You must Set Forth at Dawn.

 

Doris Lessing (Zimbabwe). Born in Persia (Iran), Lessing grew up in rural Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), becoming involved in leftist politics and anti-apartheid activism at an early age. She left in 1949 with her first novel, set in Rhodesia, The Grass is Singing, which was published to great acclaim.

 

Ngugi wa Thi’ongo (Kenya). Best known for his 1967 novel, A Grain of Wheat, Ngugi left Kenya after persecution for his political views of the regime under Arap Moi. A Grain of Wheat tells several stories that come together around the theme of uhuru (independence from colonial rule), which came to Kenya in 1963.

 

Nawal el Saadawi (Egypt). A medical doctor, activist and feminist who has been a vocal opponent of female genital mutilation, el Saadawi is especially known for her 1979 novel, Woman at Point Zero and other works exploring the place of women in Islam.