If you are enthused by African History or fiction, then here is a list of historical fiction by some African writers.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasa
In Homegoing two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana.
Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unknown to Effia, her sister Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle’s dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast’s booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery.
One thread of Homegoing follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization.
The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day.
Ama by Manu Herbstein
Winner of the 2002 Commonwealth Prize for Best First book, Ama personifies the experience of eighteenth-century Africans during the slave trade.
In it, Nandzi – who was given the name Ama – is thrust into a foreign land, passed from owner to owner, and stripped of her identity. Though forced into desperation, brutally seized, raped, and enslaved Ama never lets her soul be consumed by fear. This is a story of defiance and spiritual fire.
Cloth Girl by Marilyn Heward Mill
Matilda Quartey is fourteen years old when sophisticated black Gold Coast lawyer, Robert Bannerman, sets eyes on her and resolves to take her as his second wife.
For Julie, his first wife, this is a colossal slap in the face; for Matilda, it is an abrupt – and cruel – end to childhood. Entwined with their story – by turns funny and heartbreaking – is that of Alan Turton, new ADC to the Governor, and his dissatisfied wife, Audrey, a hard-drinking accident waiting to happen, who is appalled by her new life.
Cloth Girl’s Ghana is a cauldron of contradictions – outwardly Christian, yet profoundly superstitious and reliant on fetish priests; exhausting, but exhilarating. For Matilda, it is her passionately loved homeland, for Audrey it is a prison.
For the men it is a land of opportunity, where careers can be made and broken, fortunes lost and won. And for all of them, the events of these ten years will shape and define their lives forever.
Azazeel by Youseef Ziedan
Set in the 5th century AD, Azazeel is the exquisitely crafted tale of a Coptic monk’s journey from Upper Egypt to Alexandria and then Syria during a time of massive upheaval in the early Church. Winner of the Arab Booker Prize, Azazeel highlights how one man’s beliefs are challenged by the malice of the devil, but by the corruption with the early Church.
Butterfly Fish by Irenosen Okojie
Set in multiple locations and eras – including modern-day London, 1950s Lagos, 18th century Benin, it follows Joy who struggles to pull the threads of her life back together after the sudden death of her mother.
She receives an unexpected inheritance from her mother – a large sum of money, her grandfather’s diary, and a unique brass head, which takes us on a journey from modern-day London to 18th century Benin.
Thread of Gold Beads by Nike Campbell-Fatoki
Amelia, daughter of the last independent King of Danhomè, King Gbèhanzin, is the apple of her father’s eye, loved beyond measure by her mother, and overprotected by her siblings.
She searches for her place within the palace amidst conspirators and traitors to the Kingdom. Just when Amelia begins to feel at home in her role as a Princess, a well-kept secret shatters the perfect life she knows.
Someone else within the palace also knows and does everything to bring the secret to light. A struggle between good and evil ensues causing Amelia to leave all that she knows and loves.
She must flee Danhomè with her brother, to south-western Nigeria. In a faraway land, she finds the love of a new family and God.
The well-kept secret thought to have been dead and buried resurrects with the flash of a thread of gold beads. Amelia must fight for her life and what is left of her soul.
Set during the French-Danhomè war of the late 1890s in the Benin Republic and early 1900s in Abeokuta and Lagos, South-Western Nigeria, Thread of Gold Beads is a delicate love story, and coming of age of a young girl. It depicts the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversities.
Source: bookshybooks.com
