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Africa. It is the world's second largest continent, home to a billion people
speaking 2000 languages. It comprises over 30 million square kilometers (12 million square miles) and includes 54 countries.
Its literature is blossoming, and with it the writing of women who wish to make their voices heard.
We are pleased to provide our readers—and those of you who are new to Belletrista—an introduction to some of the
wonderful writing of African women. Below are links to twenty book reviews—not an exhaustive selection, but a
beginning for your explorations. They include books now considered modern classics as well as newer contemporary novels. Some were written
originally in English, others were translated from the French, Afrikaans, or other languages. We'd also like
to direction your attention to our interview with Najat El Hachmi, and the excerpt from Radwa Ashour's novel in this issue.
In addition to the books and authors featured in our reviews, we'd like to also recommend works by Laila Lalami, Leila Aboulela, Nawal El Saadawi, Faduma Korn, Ken Bugel, Sefi
Atta, Petinah Gappah, Malika Mokeddem, Doreen Baingana, Glaydah Namukasa... and we could go on! For those who wish to delve deeper into African women’s literature,
we also recommend the amazing and now complete set of Women Writing Africa, four volumes of diverse writings (fiction, poetry, letters, journalism,
oral histories, speeches, and historical documents) by the women of Africa, published by the Feminist Press at City University of New York. A decade
of dedicated work by African feminist scholars went into these splendid volumes, which cover centuries of important writing by African women.
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PURPLE HIBISCUS
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Purple Hibiscus, published in 2003, was Chimamanda Adichie's debut novel. Although it was awarded the Commonwealth Writer's prize for a first book, it was only when Half of a Yellow Sun won 2007's Orange Prize that readers flocked to Adichie's first offering. Since then, Purple Hibiscus, like Adichie herself, has grown in reputation, and it is a book that has earned its plaudits.
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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THE GRASS IS SINGING
Doris Lessing
The novel opens with the body of murdered Mary Turner. In an inversion of the normal order of things, that opening chapter tells us not only the ending of the story, but also summarizes everything we are to experience in the following pages—the "truths", as one character puts it, behind the "facts" of the case.
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Reviewed by Tad Deffler
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WAITING
Goretti Kyumohendo
At a mere 111 pages, Waiting by Ugandan writer Goretti Kyomuhendo is small gem of a novel, a portrait of an ordinary village family during the retreat and rampage of Idi Amin's soldiers through the country in the late 1970s. We are brought into story during a family meal by the gentle and steady voice of thirteen year old Alinda. It is through her we see the emotional and physical consequences of war as they and their friends and neighbors struggle to maintain a sense of normalcy throughout.
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Reviewed by Jana Herlander
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BENEATH THE LION'S GAZE
Maaza Mengiste
This debut novel begins as Hailu, the patriarch of a successful family in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, operates on a young man who has sustained a bullet wound in his back that will paralyze him permanently…. The boy that Hailu operates on reminds him of his youngest son …
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Reviewed by Darryl Morris
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A QUESTION OF POWER
Bessie Head
This amazing novel was written by South African Bessie Head in 1974. Like the novel's protagonist, Elizabeth, Head was a schoolteacher with a failed marriage who eventually made her home in Botswana. A Question of Power picks up Elizabeth's story as she moves to Botswana and begins a four-year battle with undiagnosed schizophrenia.
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Reviewed by Amanda Meale
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THE LAST BROTHER
Natacha Appanah
Translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan
When David comes to him in a dream, Raj, now an old man, is transported back to his childhood over 60 years earlier, to a few months which were to mark his life for ever.
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Reviewed by Rachel Hayes
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BURGER'S DAUGHTER
Nadine Gordimer
When, in 1991, Nadine Gordimer became just the third African writer to become a Nobel Laureate in Literature, it was arguably for Burger's Daughter that she was chiefly being recognised. Published in 1979, it is often quoted as being a classic about apartheid in South Africa. It isn't. It is about the people that fought it and the people that suffered from it, and the complex and difficult relationships they had with each other and with their country.
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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ON BLACK SISTERS' STREET
Chika Uniqwe
Let's be honest: my hopes for this book weren't high. The cover blurb ("Four very different women have made their way from Africa to the red light district of Brussels") didn't do much for me. In short, I decided to read it only because, as a foreign resident in Brussels myself, I was interested to see how Belgium was portrayed. You know how the saying goes, though—don't judge a book by its cover! This captivating story had me hooked from page one. Whatever I expected, it wasn't this.
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Reviewed by Rachel Hayes
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NERVOUS CONDITIONS
Tsitsi Dangarembga
"I was not sorry when my brother died." So begins Tsitsi Dangarembga's coming-of-age novel, Nervous Conditions. Set in 1960s Rhodesia, Nervous Conditions is the story of Tambu, a girl from a poverty-stricken family who is given the chance, by her wealthy uncle, to gain an education.
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Reviewed by Caitlin Fehir
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LIVING, LOVING AND LYING AWAKE AT NIGHT
Sindiwe Magona
Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night, by South African author Sindiwe Magona, was recognized as one of "Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century." In "Part One: Women at work," Magona tells the story of Atini, who is forced by dire poverty to leave her children behind in her village and go off to work as a domestic servant for a medem, as the white housewives are called.
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Reviewed by Joyce Nickel
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THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD
Buchi Emecheta
Despite the title, there is no joy to be found in this book, nor is there a happy ending to look forward to. The life of a woman so rarely follows the path of ease and tranquility, especially the life of a Nigerian woman like Nnu Ego. Born out of a passionate love affair between a village chief and his mistress, Nnu should have known only love and privilege in her life. Yet she has known only hardship.
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Reviewed by C. Lariviere
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THE BOY NEXT DOOR
Irene Sabatini
The Boy Next Door, Irene Sabatini's debut novel, begins with Ian's supposed act of violence. Lindiwe, then fourteen, feels guilt over the fact that her entire family slept peacefully as next door Mrs. McKenzie burned to death.
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Reviewed by Caitlin Fehir
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BUTTERFLY BURNING
Yvonne Vera
Readers beware: if you prefer a conventional or chronological narrative structure, you may struggle to comprehend Butterfly Burning. On the other hand, if you are willing to be patient, it is possible to reach out and almost touch the cloud of poetic language that Vera uses. Butterfly Burning has lingered in my memories for days, where elements of the lightly connected story start to come together.
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Reviewed by Ceri Evans
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ABOVE ALL, DON'T LOOK BACK
Maïssa Bey
Above All, Don't Look Back is a powerful novel about the traumas of war and natural disaster and their effect on memory and the perception of reality in the lives of ordinary Algerians, and, in particular, in a troubled young woman.
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Reviewed by Darryl Morris
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THE DARK HEART OF THE NIGHT
Léonora Miano
Translated from the French by Tamsin Black
…The story is about a single night in the lives of villagers in a small rural community in a fictional African country. The village is occupied by young soldiers in a revolutionary army who are determined to instil their version of pan-African identity into the villagers. The villagers are forced to commit an horrific act of cannibalism, something that the soldiers see as a ritual harking back to pre-colonial Africa. This event is witnessed by Ayané, a villager who had left for Europe years before, but has returned to be with her dying mother.
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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TO HELL WITH CONJÉ
Ingrid Winterbach
Translated by the Afrikaans by Elsa Silke
To Hell With Cronjé is Ingrid Winterbach's literary examination of one of the turning points of South African history: the Second Boer War of 1899-1902. The wars between Britain and the fledgling, and doomed, Boer nation have been largely ignored in English language literature …
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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LITTLE PEUL
Mariama Barry
Translated from the French by Carrol F. Coates
The story begins in Senegal, as the young narrator is decorated with jewelry and fitted with a new dress by her mother, and then given a ritual bath. The girl has a premonition that something unpleasant is about to happen, yet she does not fully understand what will be done to her. A woman comes to the house…
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Reviewed by Darryl Morris
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ANCESTOR STONES
Aminatta Forna
Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna is a beautiful, thoughtful piece of work to be read and savored. The protagonist, Albie, has moved from Sierra Leone with her family to settle in the UK. She receives a letter from Sierra Leone informing her that her grandfather's coffee plantation is now hers and is waiting for her. Compelled by her curiosity, she travels back to Africa to find out more.
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Reviewed by Akeela Gaibie Dawood
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THE TONGUE'S BLOOD DOES NOT RUN DRY
Assia Djebar
Translated from the French by Tegan Raleigh
If Children of the New World represents the optimism of the mid 1950s in Assia Djebar's work, The Tongue's Blood Does Not Run Dry represents the sorrow and anger of forty years later. This book comprises seven stories, each inspired by an actual story told to Djebar, and focused on the toll exacted by Algeria's turmoil on its women.
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Reviewed by Tad Deffler
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THE MAP OF LOVE
Ahdaf Soueif
The Map of Love novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1999, the first nomination for an Arabic writer. Divided into parallel narratives set in 1997 and in the 1900s, The Map of Love recounts the research of present day Isabel into the adventures of her ancestor, Anna. The book is divided into four sections: A Beginning, An End of a Beginning, A Beginning of an End, and An End. To me the book feels like the fairytales my mother read to me before bed, "Once upon a time…."
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Reviewed by Ceri Evans
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