Books From Around the World (YA): Africa

It’s often interesting to get a different perspective on the world. Here are some books set in some far-flung places – and some places close to home – grouped by continent/large body of water with islands in it. The books on this list are (mostly) written by authors from the countries they are about, and in many cases have been translated into English from their mother tongues (the book we’ve chosen for Madagascar, Return to the enchanted island by Johary Ravaloson, is only the second book to have ever been translated from Malagasy into English!).

Not all of the books are in the Young Adult collection, but we’ve tried to make sure that they all at least feature kids or teens in prominent places in the story. Our eventual goal is to have at least one book for every country in the world! Help us out by sending in recommendations if you’ve found one we’ve missed!

This list contains books written by authors from Africa. Check out our lists for authors from Asia, Europe, North and Central America, Oceania, and South America for even more recommendations!

Updated June 19, 2024
W
Wellington City Libraries Youth team at Wellington City Libraries
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The stranger
Camus, Albert
Paper Book
Through the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd." First published in 1946; now in a new translation by Matthew Ward.

Algeria | Algerian-French author

Angola Janga : kingdom of runaway slaves
Salete, Marcelo D'
Paper Book
An independent kingdom of runaway slaves founded in the late 16th century, Angola Janga was a beacon of freedom in a land plagued with oppression. In stark black ink and chiaroscuro panel compositions, D'Salete brings history to life; the painful stories of fugitive slaves on the run, the brutal...

Angola | Brazilian author writing about communities of escaped Angolan slaves in the 17th century

Twenty chickens for a saddle : the story of an African childhood
Scott, Robyn.
Paper Book
A glorious new voice on Africa, Robyn Scott's adventures growing up in Botswana in a loving but eccentric family will be one of the season's most talked-about memoirsRobyn Scott's story of moving at the age of seven to Botswana with her adventure-seeking parents is described by Alexander...

Botswana | Author is a New Zealander who grew up in Botswana

Small country : a novel
Faye, Ga©±l
Paper Book
Already an international sensation and prize-winning bestseller in France, an evocative coming-of-age story of a young boy, a lost childhood and a shattered homeland.   SHORTLISTED FOR THE ALBERTINE PRIZE * NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ESQUIRE<...
Burundi | Burundian author
The impatient : a novel
Amadou Amal, Djai?li
Paper Book
A powerful, heartrending, and insightful novel of a trio of women in Cameroon who dare to rebel against oppressive, long-held cultural traditions--including polygamy and domestic abuse--that define and limit their lives. Three women, three stories, three linked destinies . . . In...
Cameroon | Cameroonian author
Aya : life in Yop City
Abouet, Marguerite
Paper Book
Experience the award-winning series about independent young women growing up in 1970s Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, 1978. It's a golden time, and the nation, too-an oasis of affluence and stability in West Africa-seems fueled by something wondrous. Aya is loosely based upon...

Cote d'Ivoire | Ivorian author

City of saints & thieves
Anderson, Natalie C
Paper Book
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo meets Gone Girl in this enthralling murder mystery set in Kenya.   In the shadows of Sangui City, there lives a girl who doesn't exist. After fleeing the Congo as refugees, Tina and her mother arrived in Kenya looking for the...

Democratic Republic of the Congo | American author writing a story with a Congolese protagonist based on extensive work with Congolese refugees in Nairobi, Kenya. Read more about the author's approach on the Invisible Children blog.

What strange paradise
El Akkad, Omar
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR * From the widely acclaimed, bestselling author of American War--a beautifully written, unrelentingly dramatic, and profoundly moving novel that looks at the global refugee crisis through the eyes of a child. "Told from...

Egypt | Egyptian-Canadian author

Palace walk
Maı̀Æf¿±ð̀, Naj♯±b
Paper Book
Volume I of the masterful Cairo Trilogy. A national best-seller in both hardcover and paperback, it introduces the engrossing saga of a Muslim family in Cairo during Egypt's occupation by British forces in the early 1900s.

Egypt | Egyptian author

Behold the dreamers : a novel
Mbue, Imbolo
Paper Book
A compulsively readable debut novel about marriage, immigration, class, race, and the trapdoors in the American Dream--the unforgettable story of a young Cameroonian couple making a new life in New York just as the Great Recession upends the economy New York Times ...

Cameroon | Cameroonian-American author

Shubeik lubeik
Muh?ammad, Di?na?
Paper Book
* Winner of the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation *Eisner Award Nominee * Hugo Award Nominee A brilliantly original debut graphic novel that imagines a fantastical alternate Cairo where wishes really do come true. Shubeik Lubeik--a fairy tale rhyme that means...

Egypt | Egyptian author

The Moor's account : a novel
Lalami, Laila
Paper Book
"From the Pulitzer Prize finalist, author of The Moor's Account--a timely and powerful new novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant that is at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, all of it informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture. Nora Guerraoui...

Morocco | Moroccan-American author

When the ground is hard
Nunn, Malla
Paper Book
Edgar Award nominee stuns in this heartrending tale set in a Swaziland boarding school where two girls of different castes bond over a shared copy of Jane Eyre. A Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Century Adele Joubert loves being one of the...

Eswatini | Swazi-Australian author

The shadow king : a novel
Mengiste, Maaza
Paper Book
With the threat of Mussolini's army looming, recently orphaned Hirut struggles to adapt to her new life as a maid in Kidane and his wife Aster's household. Kidane, an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie's army, rushes to mobilize his strongest men before the Italians invade. His initial kindness to...
Ethiopia | Ethiopian-American author
Born a crime : stories from a South African childhood
Noah, Trevor
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * More than one million copies sold! A "brilliant" (Lupita Nyong'o, Time), "poignant" (Entertainment Weekly), "soul-nourishing" (USA Today) memoir about coming of age during the twilight of apartheid  

South Africa | South African author (Coloured, Xhosa)

The Arab of the future : a graphic memoir : a childhood in the Middle East (1978-1984)
Sattouf, Riad
Paper Book
The Arab of the Future, the #1 French best-seller, tells the unforgettable story of Riad Sattouf's childhood, spent in the shadows of 3 dictators--Muammar Gaddafi, Hafez al-Assad, and his father In striking, virtuoso graphic style that captures both the immediacy of...

Libya | Libyan-French author

The history of a difficult child
Sibhat, Mihret
Paper Book
"An endearing coming-of-age story. . . . Sharp and witty. . . . A wily and operatic novel. . . . Propulsive." --The Washington Post "The History of a Difficult Child is an extraordinary novel." --Maaza Mengiste, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Shadow King...

Ethiopia | Ethiopian author

Nightbloom
Medie, Peace Adzo
Paper Book
From the author of Reese's Book Club Pick His Only Wife, this moving novel about the unbreakable power of female friendship follows two estranged women in Ghana who reconnect in a crisis. When Selasi and Akorfa were young girls in Ghana, they were more than...

Ghana | Ghanaian author

And still peace did not come : a memoir of reconciliation
Kamara-Umunna, Agnes
Paper Book
When bullets hit Agnes Kamara-Umunna's home in Monrovia, Liberia, she and her father hastily piled whatever they could carry into their car and drove toward the border, along with thousands of others. An army of children was approaching, under the leadership of Charles Taylor. It seemed like the end...

Liberia | Liberian author

She would be king : a novel
Moore, Waye?tu
Paper Book
A novel of exhilarating range, magical realism, and history--a dazzling retelling of Liberia's formation Wayétu Moore's powerful debut novel, She Would Be King, reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia's early years through three unforgettable characters who share an...

Liberia | Liberian author

In the country of men
Matar, Hisham
Paper Book
Libya, 1979. Nine-year-old Suleiman’s days are circumscribed by the narrow rituals of childhood: outings to the ruins surrounding Tripoli, games with friends played under the burning sun, exotic gifts from his father’s constant business trips abroad. But his nights have come to revolve...

Libya | Libyan author

The boy who harnessed the wind : creating currents of electricity and hope
Kamkwamba, William
Paper Book
Soon to be a Netflix film William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a country where magic ruled and modern science was mystery. It was also a land withered by drought and hunger. But William had read about windmills, and he dreamed of building one that would bring to his small village a set of...

Malawi | Malawian author

Guanta?namo diary
Slahi, Mohamedou Ould
Paper Book
An unprecedented international publishing event: the first and only diary written by a still-imprisoned Guantv°namo detainee. Since 2002, Mohamedou Slahi has been imprisoned at the detainee camp at Guantv°namo Bay, Cuba. In all these years, the United States has never...

Mauritania | Mauritanian author writing about his experiences in Guantanamo, Cuba.

Woman of the ashes
Couto, Mia
Paper Book
The first in a trilogy about the last emperor of southern Mozambique by one of Africa's most important writers Southern Mozambique, 1894. Sergeant Germano de Melo is posted to the village of Nkokolani to oversee the Portuguese conquest of territory claimed by Ngungunyane, the...

Mozambique | Mozambican author

Say you're one of them
Akpan, Uwem.
Paper Book
An Oprah's Book Club selection: this "electrifying" book (Washington Post) pays tribute to the wisdom and resilience of children even in the face of the most agonizing circumstances.  Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and...

Nigeria | Nigerian author (Annang)

An orchestra of minorities : a novel
Obioma, Chigozie
Paper Book
A heartbreaking story about a Nigerian poultry farmer who sacrifices everything to win the woman he loves, by Man Booker Finalist and author of The Fishermen, Chigozie Obioma. "It is more than a superb and tragic novel; it's a historical treasure."-Boston Globe

Nigeria | Nigerian author (Igbo)

Akata witch
Okorafor, Nnedi.
Paper Book
Affectionately dubbed "the Nigerian Harry Potter," Akata Witch weaves together a heart-pounding tale of magic, mystery, and finding one's place in the world. A Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Century Twelve-year-old Sunny lives in Nigeria,...

Nigeria | Nigerian-American author

Things fall apart
Achebe, Chinua.
Paper Book
The most widely read book in modern African literature, presented here in stunning hardcover, tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around a fearless Igbo warrior in Nigeria in the late 1800s, before and after the European colonization of the continent. ...

Nigeria | Nigerian author (Igbo)

A long way gone : memoirs of a boy soldier
Beah, Ishmael
Paper Book
In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of...

Sierra Leone | Sierra Leonean author

The power of one
Courtenay, Bryce
Paper Book
In 1939, hatred took root in South Africa, where the seeds of apartheid were newly sown. There a boy called Peekay was born. He spoke the wrong language–English. He was nursed by a woman of the wrong color–black. His childhood was marked by humiliation and abandonment. Yet he vowed to...

South Africa | South African author (Afrikaner)

African tales : a Barefoot collection
Mhlophe, Gcina.
Paper Book
Explore this colorful continent and uncover the rich ways of life of the many peoples who live there. The eight stories in this collection, each from a different African country, feature educational facts and information about the cultures from which they are chosen. The stories are retold by award...

South Africa | South African author (Xhosa, Zulu)

Journey to Jo'burg : a South African story
Naidoo, Beverley.
Paper Book
The bestselling classic set in South Africa during the apartheid era, in which two siblings must face the dangers of their divided country. This middle grade novel is an excellent choice for tween readers in grades 7 to 8, especially during homeschooling. It's a fun way to keep your child...

South Africa | South African author (Afrikaner)

The reactive : a novel
Ntshanga, Masande
Paper Book
*Winner of The Betty Trask Award (2018) *Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction Prize Finalist *Etisalat Prize for Literature Longlist *One of the Best Books of the Year 2016 --City Press, The Sunday Times, The Star, This is Africa, Africa's a Country, Sunday World Heralded in...

South Africa | South African author (Xhosa)

Nate plus one
Van Whye, Kevin
Paper Book
Boy plus boy. Two weeks in Johannesburg. A summer of music, adventure, self-discovery . . . and definitely not love. What could go wrong?   Nate needs a date to his cousin's wedding. Jai is Nate's best friend and secret crush. Could Jai be Nate's plus-one--and only?<...

South Africa | South African author (Afrikaner)

Home is not a country
Elhillo, Safia
Paper Book
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD * A CORETTA SCOTT KING HONOR BOOK * A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST YOUNG ADULT BOOK OF THE CENTURY "Nothing short of magic." --Elizabeth Acevedo, New York Times bestselling author of The Poet X From the ...

Sudan | Sudanese-American author

Kintu
Makumbi, Jennifer Nansubuga
Paper Book
Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2017 Winner of the Windham-Campbell Prize Winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize "A soaring and sublime epic. One of those great stories that was just waiting to be told."--Marlon James, Man...

Uganda | Ugandan author

The Old Drift : a novel
Serpell, Namwali
Paper Book
"A dazzling debut, establishing Namwali Serpell as a writer on the world stage."--Salman Rushdie, The New York Times Book Review   NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Dwight Garner, The New York Times * The New York Times Book Review *...

Zambia | Zambian-American author


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