Books Set in Africa

Book Summary

Emma Djan dreamed of working her way up in the police department, just like her late father did. But when, at age 26, that dream crashes down around her, a former colleague gets her an interview with a private detective agency.

Gordon, a middle-aged widower from Washington D.C., found solace in an internet support group. There he also befriended a young Ghanaian widow. When her sister is in a car accident, he’s eager to help and sends thousands of dollars to help cover the hospital bills. Gordon then travels to Ghana to surprise the new love of his life. When he goes missing, his son Derek chases after him, fearing for his father’s life.

Emma’s first case – tracking down Gordon – will lead her into the depths of the email scams of Ghana, the world’s Internet capital.

Book Summary

Author Ismael Beah was born in Sierra Leone in 1980. In 1991, when he was just 11, a violent civil war began. By the time he was 13, his parents and two brothers were killed, leaving him to be forcefully recruited as one of the child soldiers many of us were devastated to see in news reports about the war. 

Two years later, he was successfully rescued by UNICEF. In 1996, at only 16 years old, he spoke to the UN about the war and its impact on children. At 27, he released this memoir to share his journey with the world. Since the release and acclaim of his memoir, Ismael Beah has published two fiction titles and continues to advocate for children in conflict zones around the world.

Book Summary

When 6-year-old Ibrahimah is sent from his rural village to the busy city of Dakar, his parents are told he’ll be studying the Koran under a highly respected teacher, along with his cousin, Etienne. Instead of learning, Ibrahimah and Etienne are forced to beg in the streets, turning the funds over to their teacher. 

To survive, the cousins must work together and navigate endless dangers as they try to escape back to their homes. The story is fiction but based on real incidents from Senegal.

Book Summary

In this compelling YA novel, fifteen-year-old Amadou and his eight-year-old brother live as modern-day slaves on a chocolate plantation in Ivory Coast, which produces 40% of the world’s chocolate. They left home two years earlier for a seasonal job, and have been held captive ever since, forced to meet quotas or go without food. 

Everything changes when the first girl arrives at the plantation, Khadija is different. Instead of trying to just survive, she’s determined to fight back and escape. While her bravery causes complications for the brothers, it also re-inspires their will to make it back home to Mali.

Book Summary

Adunni is a 14-year-old girl living in poverty in a Nigerian village. She loves school and knows that learning all she can is the key to achieving a better life. But, despite promising to allow Adunni’s schooling to continue after her mother’s death, Adunni’s father makes a decision that ends her education in the village and changes the trajectory of her life.

You’ll be moved to both tears and cheers as Adunni endures and overcomes heartbreaking challenges while remaining focused on her dream of an education.

Book Summary

This novel is a modern reimagining of the myth of Hades and Persophone set within a Nigerian family.

Nani is just 17 years old when she loses her older sister, followed soon after by her father. She doesn’t feel understood by her mother or her remaining sister, but she finds comfort in a handsome, itinerant preacher who offers her a new place to belong. It’s not long before she finds herself in an abusive marriage and estranged from her family. Will she be able to find the courage to break free without losing her children?

Book Summary

This memoir – from Nobel Peace Prize-winning Wangari Maathai – recounts her life story, from her childhood in a rural village in the 1940s to her role as an activist and a single mother of three.

Throughout her life, Wangari Maathai fought for environmental responsibility, equality for women, and democracy in her home nation of Kenya. These efforts have led to many run-ins with the brutal Moi government and have even landed her in jail.

Her drive and determination also allowed her to become the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a Ph.D. and the first woman in Kenya to head a university department. In 2002, she was appointed to Parliament.

Book Summary

While the author of this book is Israeli, she divides her time between Israel and Kenya and has formed a deep bond with the Massai ethnic group after living with them beginning in 2001. This memoir tells her story and how she became so engaged with the community that they gave her a Massai name, Nayolang, which means “One of Us.” 

Throughout the book, you’ll be introduced to daily life, special ceremonies, and many Massai traditions. It’s a rare, thought-provoking glimpse into the similarities and differences between Western and Massai culture.

Book Summary

For the twelve years of her life, Kirabo has been raised by the women in her small Ugandan village. She is surrounded by love from her grandmother, many aunts, and her best friend, but she’s never known her mother.

Seeking answers about her mom’s identity, Kirabo spends afternoons with a local witch. She senses that in addition to her sweet, obedient nature, she has a second self inside of her – one that is headstrong and that confuses her.

This novel is rich in the folklore of Uganda and explores what it means to be a modern girl in a society that tries to silence women.

Book Summary

Told through the eyes of two 12-year-olds, this book captures Uganda’s political unrest during three months in 1972, following President Idi Amin’s rapid expulsion of those of Indian descent from the country.

Asha and her best friend, Yesofu, never cared about the differences between them: Indian. African. Girl. Boy. But when Ugandan President Idi Amin announces that Indians have ninety days to leave the country, suddenly those differences are the only things that people in Entebbe can see — not the shared after-school samosas or Asha cheering for Yesofu at every cricket game.

Determined for her life to stay the same, Asha clings to her world tighter than ever before. But Yesofu is torn, pulled between his friends, his family, and a promise of a better future. Now, as neighbors leave and soldiers line the streets, the two friends find that nothing seems sure…not even their friendship.

Book Summary

This epic novel is based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng, one of thousands of Sudanese children — the so-called Lost Boys — who were forced to leave their villages in Sudan. At the age of seven, Valentino was separated from his family and trekked hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom. When Valentino ultimately immigrated to the United States under the Lost Boys of Sudan program, he found a life full of promise but also heartache and myriad new challenges.

Dave Eggers is an American author with many non-fiction and biographical successes. For this work, Eggers and Valentino spent many years collaborating to tell the story of the Lost Boys of Sudan. Valentino shared everything that he could remember, and from that material, Eggers initially set out to write a conventional biography. Ultimately, however, he determined he could best tell the story by blending non-fictional and fictional elements. By classifying the book a novel, Eggers tells the Washington Post, it allowed him to “re-create conversations, streamline complex relationships, add relevant detail and manipulate time and space in helpful ways — all while maintaining the essential truthfulness of the storytelling.”

Book Summary

From the author of Code Name Verity, this YA historical fiction is told in diary format from the point of view of two teenagers – Emilia and Teo. When a bird strike brings down the plane that their stunt pilot mothers were flying, Teo’s mom is killed, but Emilia’s mom survives. Em’s mom, a white woman, takes Teo in, but she is concerned about the racism he will face in the American south because of the color of his skin.

She decides to raise Em and Teo in Ethiopia, the birthplace of Teo’s father, and soon all three of them fall in love with the beautiful and peaceful country. But WWII shatters that peace when, in 1935, Italy invades Ethiopia, and Em and Teo are drawn into the conflict.

Book Summary

This is the moving memoir of Dr. Hawa Abdi, who has been called “the Mother Teresa of Somalia.” When the Somali government collapsed in 1991, as famine struck and aid groups fled, Dr. Abdi turned her 1300 acres of farmland near war-torn Mogadishu into a camp for displaced people. She was Somalia’s first female obstetrician, as well as a lawyer and humanitarian.

She also inspired her daughters to become doctors. Together, they kept 90,000 of their fellow citizens safe, healthy, and educated for over 20 years at the Dr. Hawa Abdi Hope Village – a community for displaced Somalis with a 400-bed hospital, primary and secondary schools, and an innovative community justice system.

In 2010, Dr. Abdi was kidnapped by radical insurgents, who also destroyed much of her hospital simply because she was a woman. She, along with media pressure, convinced the rebels to let her go, and she demanded and received a written apology. Her work garnered her a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 2012. Her memoir was published in 2013, and Dr. Abdi died in 2020.

Book Summary

This memoir, told in alternating timelines, is an incredible tale of resilience.

Clemantine was only six years old in 1994 when, in a span of just 100 days, more than 800,000 people would be murdered in Rwanda and millions more displaced. Clemantine and her fifteen-year-old sister, Claire, were forced to run. Together, they spent the next six years making their way through refugee camps in seven African countries in search of safety. Throughout the entire time, they did not know whether their parents were alive. They witnessed unimaginable cruelty, but they also found unexpected kindness.

Six years later, at age twelve, Clemantine and her sister were both granted asylum in the United States. But this chance to build a new life in Chicago was not an easy road. She spoke five languages, but English was not one of them, and she had almost no previous experience attending school.

Book Summary

This is the first of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. Meet Precious Ramotswe, who has set up shop as Botswana’s No.1 (and only) lady detective. In her first case, she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. However, the case that tugs at her heart and lands her in danger is a missing eleven-year-old boy, whom witch doctors may have snatched.

Book Summary

Originally from Sydney, Australia, Peter Allison’s safaris have been featured in National Geographic, Conde Nast Traveler, Jack Hanna’s Animal Adventures, and other television shows. In this book, he gives us a guide’s-eye-view of what it’s like to live and work in Botswana’s Kalahari Desert, confronting wild animals and managing herds of tourists daily (the latter often proves to be the more dangerous).

Written in the humorous style of Bill Bryson, Allison’s wry wit is exceeded only by his love and respect for the animals. His highly entertaining stories will keep you laughing, but you’ll also have a much better appreciation for the wildlife of Africa at the end of the book.

Book Summary

Born a Crime is the true story of Daily Show host Trevor Noah’s childhood and into his early adulthood. His rise to success was unlikely based on his beginning. Trevor was born in South Africa in 1984 to a white father and black mother. His parents could have been imprisoned for five years – or worse – for conceiving him. He spent his early years largely hidden from life outside because his mother feared (with good reason) that he could be removed from her custody because of the apartheid rules of segregation.

In true Trevor Noah fashion, you’ll be entertained while also receiving an education on life in apartheid South Africa. He manages to explain the extremely complex system of apartheid in accessible terms by drawing on examples and comparisons.

When the era of white rule officially ended in the early 1990s, it was far from the end of the family’s troubles. From attempted kidnappings and domestic violence to high school dating drama, you’ll find a mixture of relatable and shocking stories that keep you engaged with every page.

Book Summary

Set against the backdrop of 1950s apartheid in South Africa, this darkly romantic crime novel features English detective Emmanuel Cooper. The first mystery in the series takes place in a small town on the border between South Africa and Mozambique. New apartheid laws have created a deeper division between the Afrikaners and the English. Tensions boil over when an Afrikaner police officer is found dead.

Detective Cooper begins investigating, but his efforts are blocked by the powerful police Security Branch. But Cooper has no patience for politics and isn’t interested in making friends. Instead, he strikes out on his own and follows a trail of clues that lead him to complicated and shocking revelations.

Book Summary

Fifty-something Tannie Maria loves to cook and write – which is why she’s the perfect person to write a recipe column for her local paper, the Klein Karoo Gazette. But when the powers that be insist that the paper must also feature an advice section – Tannie’s column has to meet the requirement by becoming a joint advice and recipe column. 

When her column receives a letter from a woman whose husband beats her, Tannie’s best advice appears not to be good enough when a woman matching that description turns up dead. She and her Gazette colleagues decide to help the police find the murderer. But things are not so simple, and soon there’s another murder – a suspected poisoning – as well as a kidnapping or two. 

This is the first book in a murder mystery series that’s packed with humor (ranging from slapstick to understated). 

Book Summary

Nelson Mandela is one of the great leaders of the 20th century whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him not only the Nobel Peace Prize, but also the presidency of his country. This autobiography is very broad in its scope, covering his upbringing in the traditional tribal culture of his ancestors, his early years as a poor student and a law clerk, his political awakening, his time spent in jail, and finally, his inauguration as South Africa’s first black president. 

In addition to providing an in-depth and personal look at the life of this incredible man – Long Walk to Freedom also provides a riveting account of South Africa’s history and change from Apartheid to a Democratic state.

Book Summary

In 1939, as Hitler’s influence began to cast a shadow across the world, apartheid started to take root in South Africa. During this time, Peekay’s childhood was marked by humiliation and abandonment.

In this coming-of-age novel (inspired by the author’s real-life experiences), we follow Peekay’s life from the age of 5 to 20 – including his years at boarding school, where he endured horrible conditions. Despite all the suffering he endures, Peekay remains open-minded and positive and manages to form some very meaningful relationships with teachers, mentors, and a boxer.

This beautiful novel provides a deep dive not only into the history of South Africa, but also into the world of boxing.

Book Summary

Set against the backdrop of life on a South African wild animal reserve, this memoir details South African-born conservationist Lawrence Anthony’s experiences taking in a “rogue” herd of elephants (initially against his better judgment). The elephants had already earned a reputation as notorious escape artists (largely due to their past negative encounters with humans), and Anthony was their last hope. As Lawrence battled to create a bond with the elephants and save them from execution, he came to realize that they had a lot to teach him about life, loyalty and freedom. 

Although the elephants are the focus of this story, readers can also glean much more about life in the wilds of South Africa.

Book Summary

As a young boy growing up in Malawi – a country where magic ruled and modern science was mystery – William was fascinated by electricity and dreamed of studying science at a top boarding school. When famine devastated his family’s farm and left them destitute, William’s parents could no longer afford his tuition, and he was forced to drop out of school. Nevertheless, William continued to pursue his passion with the help of books and set out to bring electricity and water to his village by building a crude but operable windmill.

Soon, news of William’s “electric wind” spread across the country and around the world, and the boy who was once called crazy became an inspirational example of human inventiveness and its power to overcome crippling adversity.