Leaving Before the Rains Come by Alexandra Fuller

While I thoroughly enjoyed the first two of her memoirs, this one is exceptionally well written.  Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight was about her childhood as a British expat living on various farms in southern Africa. In Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness she explores some of the same territory but from the perspective of her mentally unstable mother.  This book is Alexandra the grown up, who marries an American whom she believes will save her from the chaos of her African life.  But then, maybe all that civilization, even in the wild west of Wyoming, is not what it is cracked up to be.  This is an even more introspective examination of not just her life but any life caught between two worlds.  She also explores the effect of place on who we are.  There are many of her philosophical musings that would be great fodder for discussion or just to pause and consider on your own.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Ifemelo and Obinze are both bright teenagers in Nigeria with dreams of studying abroad together.  Ifemelo ends up in America.  Ivy school educated and beautiful, she finds herself in relationships that seem to leave the memory of Nigeria and Obinze behind.  But in Africa, Ifemelo was Nigerian.  In America, she is Black and seeing her adopted country from that perspective leads her to write a most insightful blog on the subject.  Reading her blog challenges the reader to evaluate their own understanding of race in America and the nature of prejudice. 
Meanwhile Obinze finds himself in London and in trouble.  Both return to Nigeria where once again, they must decide if there is a future for them together and where that might be.  This is a story of friendship and of immigration but mostly a much disturbing perspective on race.

Ake:the years of childhood by Wole Soyinke

Wole Soyinke, a Nigerian poet and playwright, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986 - the first African to do so.  This is very young Wole as the brilliant, sensitive observer of Yoruba life in his Nigerian town of Abeokuta.  Although he came from an educated family, he was not immune to the comings and goings of village life.  There are tragic moments in this story but this is a life filled with the joy of discovery as Wole strives to make sense of a world we can only understand from afar.  The importance of family, the love of learning, and the respect for tradition are the lenses Wole uses to help us understand life in "Ake".

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller

Fuller first introduced us to her family in Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight.  This time the story revolves around her mother, Nicola.  Both delightfully witty and profoundly sad, this is the story of a couple in love with Africa with all it's challenges, it's dangers and it's breath-taking beauty - an Africa which took hold of their very heart and soul.  It covers the time period from Nicola's grandparent's colonial experience in Africa in the 40's through the tragic struggle  toward independence on to her parent's current life in Zambia.  Although her mother expresses "anger" that Fuller has written that "Awful Book", she has always dreamed of living a life worthy of a novel.  I would say she succeeded. That Nicola's daughter has put such a funny, joyous spin on such a difficult life is even better.  These are definitely people I would love to know.

The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski

Kapuscinski was a news reporter assigned to Africa for a Polish newspaper.  This book is a collection of observations and experiences from the beginnings of independence in the 1960's until the 1990's. It does not make for a pretty story.  Independence brought freedom and corruption.  The lessons of slavery were repeated by the freed slaves returned to Africa.  It is a continent of dense vegetation and great desert and both conspire to defeat the humans who live there.  The book is beautifully translated and a fascinating insight into the history as well as the physical and human geography of various parts of Africa.  There are both descriptions of the decades of turmoil and respectful discussions of the African capacity for stillness.  Africans are people rich in tradition and myth but short on hope.  That being said,  at the end of the book, he tells a story about a group of people gathered under a tree in Tanzania late at night.  An elephant appears and they fear for their lives.  And then the elephant simply walks back into the night.  His Tanzanian friend explains that they have been visited by the spirit of Africa.  "The spirit of Africa always appears in the guise of an elephant.  Because no other animal can vanquish an elephant.   Not a lion, not a buffalo, not a snake."  Which perhaps explains why in the face of epidemic disease and devastating warfare, Africa remains.

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

This may be one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read. The style is often poetic even biblical.  The story should be dated since it is South Africa pre-apartheid but the sense of place and history is powerful and struggle shared is heart-breaking.  Truly a classic.

The Weather in Africa by Martha Gellhorn

After watching the HBO special on Hemingway and Gellhorn, I was curious as to the kind of writer she was and I am always interested in Africa as a setting.  This is three individual stories all set in the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro around the time of Kenya's independence. In each story the European / American expectation is in conflict with the African reality.  The writing is spare and it is hard to know how much Gellhorn is in each of the stories but it is clear that in each story,  Africa wins.

A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene

Every once in a while I need an Africa hit. Maybe it is true of anyone who has had the good fortune to live for an extended time in a place so utterly different from the place they call home. I found this in a great used book store in NYC and bought it because it was cheap and it was Graham Greene. The setting is the late 50's in the Congo at a leproserie run by a Catholic brotherhood. "The" Querry, a renown architect has arrived on a rickety riverboat. He is running from something - fame? notoriety? self? but in typical colonial fashion, he has not run far enough. You can tussle with the themes of religion, beliefs, identity or just soak in the mysterious muggy, earthy air of Africa.I always enjoy Greene's book best when I get them used and I can imagine them emerging from a trunk once carried through the heart of Africa.

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

In 2005 two women meet on a beach in Nigeria. Sarah, a successful journalist from England, is trying to save her marriage. Little Bee, really too young in years to be called a woman, is trying to save her life. An act that is either courageous or foolish propels them on a course on which they are destined to meet again. One wonders how this British male author is able to so accurately and compellingly portray these two people. You can picture them, you can hear them and you so desperately know that you can not save them. In one of my favorite lines, and there are many, Bee describes the people of her village as living "happily without hope". Having spent time in West Africa, this phrase is as accurate as any I have heard to explain the mystery and frustration of African development.

The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton

How did it take me so long to get around to reading a book about a librarian in Africa!? Fiona leaves the security of her life in NYC to have do something "real". She accepts a job as a librarian in Kenya and finds herself delivering books by camel to the wandering tribes of northeast Kenya. The elders of the village possess the wisdom that has allowed them to survive for centuries and the young people possess the desire for a window to the world beyond their piece of arid bush. The question of what to do with knowledge one wishes to share is tricky at best and the roles of teacher and learner are almost never clear. Connected in this struggle are a young boy horribly disfigured by a hyena attack with a gift for recording his view of the world but no paper to write on, a teacher who as been to the big city and returned with information his village does not always wish to hear, and a young girl whose hope for a different future is weighted down with responsibilities of the past. Hamilton actually travelled with the real camel bookmobile and her experiences make the story all the more believable. This is one of my new favorites.