Efuru


Flora Nwapa - 1966
    Flora Nwapa's first novel plants her story firmly in the world of women, where Efuru, beautiful and respected, is loved and deserted by two ordinary, undistinguished husbands.

Stay with Me


Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ - 2017
    Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide have always agreed: polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage--after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying strange teas and unlikely cures--Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time--until her family arrives on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin's second wife. Furious, shocked, and livid with jealousy, Yejide knows the only way to save her marriage is to get pregnant, which, finally, she does--but at a cost far greater than she could have dared to imagine. An electrifying novel of enormous emotional power, Stay With Me asks how much we can sacrifice for the sake of family.

House of Stone


Novuyo Rosa Tshuma - 2018
    Their enigmatic lodger, Zamani, seems to be their last, best hope for finding him. Since Bukhosi's disappearance, Zamani has been preternaturally helpful: hanging missing posters in downtown Bulawayo, handing out fliers to passersby, and joining in family prayer vigils with the flamboyant Reverend Pastor from Agnes's Blessed Anointings church. It's almost like Zamani is part of the family....But almost isn't nearly enough for Zamani. He ingratiates himself with Agnes and feeds alcoholic Abednego's addiction, desperate to extract their life stories and steep himself in borrowed family history, as keenly aware as any colonialist or power-mad despot that the one who controls the narrative inherits the future. As Abednego wrestles with the ghosts of his past and Agnes seeks solace in a deep-rooted love, their histories converge and each must confront the past to find their place in a new Zimbabwe. Pulsing with wit, seduction, and dark humor, House of Stone is a sweeping epic that spans the fall of Rhodesia through Zimbabwe's turbulent beginnings, exploring the persistence of the oppressed in a young nation seeking an identity, but built on forgetting.

Open City


Teju Cole - 2011
    The walks meet a need for Julius: they are a release from the tightly regulated mental environment of work, and they give him the opportunity to process his relationships, his recent breakup with his girlfriend, his present, his past.But it is not only a physical landscape he covers; Julius crisscrosses social territory as well, encountering people from different cultures and classes who will provide insight on his journey—which takes him to Brussels, to the Nigeria of his youth, and into the most unrecognizable facets of his own soul.

Freshwater


Akwaeke Emezi - 2018
    It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side." Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities.Ada begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents, Saul and Saachi, successfully prayed her into existence, but as she grows into a volatile and splintered child, it becomes clear that something went terribly awry. When Ada comes of age and moves to America for college, the group of selves within her grows in power and agency. A traumatic assault leads to a crystallization of her alternate selves: Asụghara and Saint Vincent. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these selves--now protective, now hedonistic--move into control, Ada's life spirals in a dark and dangerous direction.Narrated by the various selves within Ada and based in the author's realities, Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace, heralding the arrival of a fierce new literary voice.

The Narrow Path


Francis Selormey - 1966
    The story that he tells, nearly 40 years later, is of his early days at home and in school, brought up in a strict mission household and conflicting with his father.

Ways of Dying


Zakes Mda - 1995
    Day after day he attends funerals in the townships, dressed with dignity in a threadbare suit, cape, and battered top hat, to comfort the grieving families of the victims of the city's crime, racial hatred, and crippling poverty. At a Christmas day funeral for a young boy Toloki is reunited with Noria, a woman from his village. Together they help each other to heal the past, and as their story interweaves with those of their acquaintances this elegant short novel provides a magical and painful picture of South Africa today.

Nomaswazi


Busisekile Khumalo - 2019
    Forsaking the riches of her former life, she manages to build herself up from bartending to the respectable offices of a reputable law firm. Her tranquility is shattered when the same arrogant devil who almost drove her to suicide through his rejection, comes back into her life, claiming and marking her as his wife. Nomaswazi is forced to come back home a prodigal daughter when her father's health takes a turn for the worst. Her father had always cocooned her from the harsh truths of her birth but even he couldn't protect her from the revelations which await her in the rustic hills of Maphalaleni.

Suspending Reality


Kelly Rimmer - 2012
    Each has a secret, and each will stop at nothing to find freedom.Suspending Reality is a novel that asks the question - can you ever outrun consequence?

The Translator


Leila Aboulela - 1999
    Now, for the first time in North America, we step back to her extraordinarily assured debut about a widowed Muslim mother living in Aberdeen who falls in love with a Scottish secular academic. Sammar is a Sudanese widow working as an Arabic translator at a Scottish university. Since the sudden death of her husband, her young son has gone to live with family in Khartoum, leaving Sammar alone in cold, gray Aberdeen, grieving and isolated. But when she begins to translate for Rae, a Scottish Islamic scholar, the two develop a deep friendship that awakens in Sammar all the longing for life she has repressed. As Rae and Sammar fall in love, she knows they will have to address his lack of faith in all that Sammar holds sacred. An exquisitely crafted meditation on love, both human and divine, The Translator is ultimately the story of one woman’s courage to stay true to her beliefs, herself, and her newfound love.

Ransom's Law


David Johnson - 2018
    But even alcohol can’t numb the agony of losing his wife or the fear of trying to raise his son, Junior, alone. However, the mind-numbing predictability of Roscoe’s life as a sharecropper and his role of town sheriff—a job given to him out of pity when he returned from the war—is suddenly upended when a black man in their tiny community is murdered and castrated. At eleven years old, Junior longs for his father’s love and attention to fill the void left by the death of his mother, but the person who has grown to fill that role is Willow Muscadine, a Cherokee Indian woman, who lives next door. When she sees him trying to locate the killer that his drunken father can’t—or won’t—find she decides to become Junior’s self-assigned protector. Junior overhears enough in town to realize this was no random murder of a black man. But the more questions he asks, the more dangerous the situation becomes for him, Roscoe, and Willow. When the threats turn deadly, will it be enough to shake Roscoe from his misery in time to save them and find redemption? Or will his personal demons once again win until he’s lost everything and everyone who cares about him? Best selling author, David Johnson, has once again produced one of his trademark “books with heart” and spun a tale that will have you rooting for the underdogs and hoping that good will triumph over evil.

Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Right


Ukamaka Olisakwe - 2020
    After a rape and unwanted pregnancy leave her exiled from her family in Kano, thwarting her plans to go to university, she is sent to her aunt's in Lagos and pressured into a marriage with an older man. When their whirlwind romance descends into abuse and indignity, Ogadinma is forced to channel her independence and resourcefulness to escape a fate that appears all but inevitable. Ogadinma, the UK debut by Ukamaka Olisakwe, introduces a heroine for whom it is impossible not to root, and announces the author as a gifted chronicler of the patriarchal experience.‘An intimate and dazzling exploration of the life and times of a young Nigerian woman whose move to the capital city of Lagos leads to a series of encounters, which are by turns disorienting, revelatory and tragic.’ Christopher Merrill, author of Self-Portrait with Dogwood‘Written in vivid, engaging prose, this is the story of one woman’s journey to independence.’ Chinelo Okparanta, author of Under the Udala Trees and Happiness, Like Water: Stories

Whisper Who Dares


Terence Strong - 1982
    The new monster in the IRA's armoury must be destroyed at birth. A top-secret, top-priority order goes out to 22 Special Air Service Regiment:SEEK AND DESTROY - NO MATTER WHERE.For the four-men Sabre team of the legendary SAS this will be their toughest mission... probing the inner sanctum of the IRA's terror machine, fighting in the bloody carnage and chaos of Ulster - never before has so much been at stake. They encounter both triumph and disaster - and the cruellest twist of fate.

And After Many Days


Jowhor Ile - 2016
    As they grapple with the sudden loss of their darling boy, they embark on a painful and moving journey of immense power which changes their lives forever and shatters the fragile ecosystem of their once ordered family. Ajie, the youngest sibling, is burdened with the guilt of having seen Paul last and convinced that his vanished brother was betrayed long ago. But his search for the truth uncovers hidden family secrets and reawakens old, long forgotten ghosts as rumours of police brutality, oil shortages, and frenzied student protests serve as a backdrop to his pursuit.In a tale that moves seamlessly back and forth through time, Ajie relives a trip to the family's ancestral village where, together, he and his family listen to the myths of how their people settled there, while the villagers argue over the mysterious Company, who found oil on their land and will do anything to guarantee support. As the story builds towards its stunning conclusion, it becomes clear that only once past and present come to a crossroads will Ajie and his family finally find the answers they have been searching for.And After Many Days introduces Ile's spellbinding ability to tightly weave together personal and political loss until, inevitably, the two threads become nearly indistinguishable. It is a masterful story of childhood, of the delicate, complex balance between the powerful and the powerless, and a searing portrait of a community as the old order gives way to the new.

Bringing Down the House


Richard P. Brickner - 1971
    Multibillionaire Goddard Moss has a vision: a city rising tall on the South Dakota prairie dedicated to Art. Not art of the staid, traditional, edifying, entertaining variety, but the Modern—modern painting, modern theater, modern sculpture, modern dance, all as obscure, pretentious, and offensive as its creators can make it (and with luck, government-funded). As Culture City rises from the grassy fields, playwrights, performers, and artists prepare for the gala opening week. Gregory Lubin's expansive stage re-creation of the Tower of Babel story is awaited with particular anticipation. But revolution is brewing just yards beyond the city walls and as far away as rural Maine. Despite the money being lavished on it, it becomes doubtful that "the Artland in the Heartland" will survive past its premiere.