New African Literature to Read this Fall
We highlight eight newly published and forthcoming works from African and African descent writers to add to your fall reading list.
For the first time in almost 50 years, Wole Soyinka is publishing a new novel: Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth(opens in a new tab). The first and only Black African winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature returns today with a salty, satirical, and thinly-veiled portrayal of his Nigerian homeland, a novel Ben Okri calls “essentially a whistleblower’s book.”
In honor of this exciting news, we’re featuring eight more new releases by African and African descent writers we’re looking forward to this fall and winter. Happy reading!
Brotherhood
by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, translated from French by Alexia Trigo
Two lovers are executed for adultery in an imaginative North African town. In response, a secret group of resisters creates an underground newspaper, a library is burnt to the ground, and the mothers of the executed exchange letters to process their loss. Sarr’s debut novel addresses the limits of language, but I very much hope there’s more to come.
The River in the Belly and other poems
by Fiston Mwanza Mujila, translated from French by J. Bret Manley
Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s lyrical collection of poems meditates on the Congo River and its many histories. Through the use of numbered poems called “solitudes,” Mujila explores the “river in the belly”–the depths and eddies, fluidity and sickness the river conjures. Like his novel Tram 83, the collection develops a rich and proliferating sound-scape of jazz, Congolese pop, and quotidian life.
Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa
edited by Jason Mykl Snyman, Karina M. Szczurek, and Rachel Zadok
Every year I look forward to the release Short Story Day Africa’s newest anthology, which brings together the newest writing from some of the most exhilarating and talented writers on the continent. The themed collections are exquisite, expansive, and this year, eerily prescient, featuring stories on climate change, pandemics, social change, surveillance, and space travel.
Unbury our dead with song
by Mũkoma Wa Ngũgĩ
A haunting ode to nostalgia and memory, tizita is a bluesy ballad unique to Ethiopia. Mũkoma Wa Ngũgĩ’s newest novel takes tizita as its subject and soundtrack, moving from Nairobi’s music scene to the Ethiopian countryside. One half of a brother-sister duo publishing this fall, Mũkoma adds a road-trip novel filled with music to an expansive body of work that includes crime fiction and literary criticism.
Seasons in Hippoland
by Wanjikũ Wa Ngũgĩ
Every image is a story and every story a portal in this novel set in an imaginary country ruled by an Emperor for Life and full of magical objects. Wanjikũ Wa Ngũgĩ’s novel, which turns on a porcelain bowl and the travelling rumors of its healing powers, is part political fable, part fairy tale, and the second half of the brother-sister duo publishing this fall.
The House of Rust
by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber
A young girl on a quest to find her father sails a magical boat, gets advice from a talking cat, and defeats three epic sea monsters in this coming-of-age tale set in the Hadrami diaspora on the Swahili Coast. Khadija Abdalla Bajaber is the inaugural winner of Graywolf Press’ African Fiction Prize, and I’m very excited to see this fantastical novel in the world!
A Long Way from Douala
by Max Lobe, translated from French by Ros Schwartz
Chasing two brothers—one determined to escape Cameroon for a life in Europe, the other determined to catch him—A Long Way from Douala is a rollicking road trip novel full of crazy characters and unlikely happenings. Short vignettes and sparky Camfranglais structure the journey of travel companions navigating grief, sexuality, what it means to leave home, and what it means to stay.
Noor
by Nnedi Okorafor
Africanfuturist luminary Nnedi Okorafor’s newest adult novel mixes the themes she’s most known for with those of her own life experience to create a story of intense action, glittering biotech, and differently-abled and -modified human bodies in the near-future Nigerian desert. Okorafor’s been writing a ton in film and comic spaces (including Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed adaptation and Marvel Black Panther comics), so I’m excited for her return to fiction.
Also of note:
A few African writers in translation published earlier in 2021:
- The Ardent Swarm(opens in a new tab) by Yamen Manai, translated from French by Lara Vergnaud (Amazon Crossing). Read an interview between the author and translator on Words Without Borders.(opens in a new tab)
- Acclaimed Mozambican writer Mia Couto’s newest collection of short stories, Sea Loves Me: Selected Stories(opens in a new tab), translated from Portuguese by David Brookshaw with Eric M.B. Becker (Biblioasis).
- Congolese writer Emmanuel Dongala’s historical novel reimagining the life of George Bridgetower, virtuoso violinist and early friend of Beethoven: The Bridgetower Sonata: Sonata Mulattica(opens in a new tab), translated from French by Marjolijn de Jager (Schaffner Press)
Many African writers have received prize recognition so far this year, including David Diop and translator Anna Moschovakis, winners of the International Booker Prize for At Night All Blood is Black. Read a conversation with David and Anna here.(opens in a new tab)
We can’t resist adding one of our newest Two Lines Press books published earlier this month: Kaya Days by Carl de Souza, translated from French by Jeffrey Zuckerman.(opens in a new tab)
Set in the island nation of Mauritius off the coast of East Africa, Kaya Days is animated by the protests following the death of seggae musician Joseph Réginald Topize, known as Kaya, who died in police custody after being arrested for smoking weed on stage.
Join us tonight, September 28, for Carl de Souza and Jeffrey Zuckerman in conversation with Kei Miller. This virtual event is hosted by our friends at Community Bookstore.
See the event here(opens in a new tab), and register on Community Bookstore’s website(opens in a new tab).
Kelsey McFaul is part of the editorial staff at Two Lines Press. She has a PhD in literature from UC Santa Cruz with a focus in African language literatures. She first joined Two Lines as a Public Fellow in 2020–21, supporting the creation of No Edges: Swahili Stories.
