February 2022 marks Black History Month.
Black History Month is set aside yearly to celebrate all things black. The richness of the culture and the resilience of a people who have overcome oppression, hostility, and prejudice. In honour of this special event, today, I would digress from speaking to global cultural topics and would focus on a cultural topic relating to black societies, specifically the most populated black continent in the world—Africa.
Africa today is a richly diverse place. Its ethnic mix, the more than 1,500 languages spoken there, and even the genetic origins of its 1.2 billion people are more varied than on any other place on Earth. There are several black individuals scattered across the world, either through willing migration or from the Pan-Atlantic slave trade that spanned over 400 years. Either way, many Africans today feel an increasing disconnect from their rich culture, history, and heritage due to the threat of cultural imperialism, and the popular narrative that only ‘Western’ is good, modern, and aspirational.
In an attempt to guide the ‘lost children of Africa,’ those who are losing touch of their identities, we have compiled an interesting list of books to get you started on your exploration of what it means to be truly African, the challenges, the history, and most importantly, the stories—both fiction and non-fiction—that dares to challenge the ongoing narrative and reignite the dwindling pride of African descent. Without further ado, let us begin the countdown. Keep in mind that as usual this list isn’t in any particular order.
1. Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa by Dambisa Moyo
Dambisa Moyo's Dead Aid describes the current state of postwar development policy in Africa and confronts one of the greatest myths of our time: that billions of dollars in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations has helped to reduce poverty and increase growth. In fact, poverty levels continue to rise, while growth rates have steadily declined—and millions continue to suffer. Moyo illuminates how overreliance on aid has trapped developing nations in a vicious circle of aid dependency, corruption, market distortion, and further poverty, leaving them with nothing but the "need" for aid. This is an important book that shows the root cause of Africa’s unwarranted poverty, and those who are passionate about solving this issue would find this read extremely rewarding.
2. THE GREAT ESCAPE: HEALTH, WEALTH, AND THE ORIGINS OF INEQUALITY, BY ANGUS DEATON (2013)
The next non-fiction book on the list is ‘The Great Escape’ by Angus Deaton, a Nobel Prize-winning Princeton professor of economics and international affairs investigates inequality — between classes and between countries — through a detailed statistical analysis of trends in infant mortality, life expectancy, and income levels over the last 250 years. He concludes that the large-scale inequality that plagues policymakers and reformers alike today is the result of human progress since The Great Divergence (between "the West and the rest") since the Industrial Revolution. "Economic growth," Deaton claims, "has been the engine of international income inequality." (Deaton's research backs up the work of today's economics superstar, Thomas Piketty, who finds data pointing to rising inequality.)
3. THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN: WHY THE WEST’S EFFORTS TO AID THE REST HAVE DONE SO MUCH ILL AND SO LITTLE GOOD, BY WILLIAM EASTERLY (2006)
This is the best book on the ways and means of promoting economic development in poor countries, and it is frequently included on any list of the top African books. The author believes that most traditional methods are woefully inadequate. The author, a former World Bank economist who is now a professor of economics, focuses on grassroots development. He discusses the importance of involving people who will be affected by change in the planning and execution of the change, beginning with the selection of what will be changed. Easterly's experience and the examples he cites are primarily from Sub-Saharan Africa.
4. THE TYRANNY OF EXPERTS: ECONOMISTS, DICTATORS, AND THE FORGOTTEN RIGHTS OF THE POOR, BY WILLIAM EASTERLY
A decade after The White Man's Burden, the author investigates the history of economic development and discovers that experts have gotten it all wrong. They pose as experts with technocratic solutions that suppress the rights of those they claim to help — and almost always fail. Indeed, he contends that democracy, rooted in local history and customs, is the key to sustainable development. It's a fascinating and surprising analysis with a lot of insight.
5. THE BOY WHO HARNESSED THE WIND: CREATING CURRENTS OF ELECTRICITY AND HOPE, BY WILLIAM KAMKWAMBA AND BRYAN MEALER (2009)
This is the incredible story of a brilliant, self-taught young Malian man who demonstrated the vast human potential left behind by underdevelopment. Kamkwamba was barely in his teens when he built a working windmill to generate electricity on his parents' farm, based on decades-old Western physics textbooks he found in a tiny nearby library.
6. THE SHADOW OF THE SUN, BY RYSZARD KAPUSCINSKI (2001)
The Shadow of the Sun is a treasure trove of incisive reporting on Africa's recent past by a 27-year veteran of the continent, featuring vivid and disturbing accounts of the origins of Liberia's heinous civil wars, the Rwandan genocide, and the causes of recurring famine in the Horn of Africa.
7. THE IDEALIST: JEFFREY SACHS AND THE QUEST TO END POVERTY, BY NINA MUNK (2013)
Though commercial trade is by far the most important aspect of Africa's economic relationship with the so-called West, most of the attention in the new media is focused on aid — the decades-long project of the world's richest nations to end poverty on the continent. The ill-advised and extravagant Millennium Villages Project of economist Jeffrey Sachs stands out as a symbol of how badly those efforts have gone wrong.
8. THE BRIGHT CONTINENT: BREAKING RULES AND MAKING CHANGE IN MODERN AFRICA BY DAYO OLOPADE (2014)
Few people who follow international news have failed to notice that economic development in many Sub-Saharan African countries has accelerated in recent years. This book catalogues an impressive number of innovative businesses, social sector ventures, and even the occasional government initiative that contribute to the region's rapid growth — and explains the cultural norms that make innovation so natural for Africans.
9. IT’S OUR TURN TO EAT: THE STORY OF A KENYAN WHISTLE-BLOWER, BY MICHAELA WRONG (2009)
No picture of contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa is complete unless official corruption is included. This story, which focuses on one brave Kenyan man who attempted to expose some of the most blatant examples of embezzlement by senior government officials, sheds light on the issue's complexities and the impact it has on African society. It's a depressing story for anyone who, like me, has known and loved Kenya and Kenyans and saw it as one of the bright spots in a dark neighbourhood.
10. DO NOT DISTURB: THE STORY OF A POLITICAL MURDER AND AN AFRICAN REGIME GONE BAD BY MICHELA WRONG (2021)
A generation of diplomats, international bureaucrats, aid workers, and philanthropists have poured billions of dollars into Rwandan President Paul Kagame's regime, often referring to him as a "benevolent dictator." However, Kagame is no philosopher king. Economic statistics are exaggerated. And, like the President and nearly everyone else in his regime, the 250,000 bodies in the Kigali Genocide Memorial are all Tutsis. They do not include any of the hundreds of thousands of Hutus who were massacred in retaliation for liberating the country from the génocidaires by Kagame's army. Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Wrong, a shocking exposé by veteran foreign correspondent Michela Wrong, exposes it all.
11. HALF OF A YELLOW SUN, BY CHIMANADA NGOZI ADICHIE (2008)
For our first fiction category, Half of a yellow sun takes the cake. This book vividly depicts the events of the 1960s, culminating in the lopsided Biafran war of independence (1967-70), which pitted the ill-equipped Igbo (Ibo) people of southeastern Nigeria against the massive forces of their national government, which was actively supported by the British.
12. AMERICANAH BY CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE (2014)
Following up her extraordinary novel Half of a Yellow Sun (reviewed here), Adichie tells the story of Ifemelu, a young Nigerian who emigrates to the United States to complete her education and returns to Nigeria thirteen years later. Americanah is, above all, a love story. The term appears to be Nigerian slang for someone like Ifemelu who returns home with American habits and expectations. Her relationships with men are central to the story, from her high school sweetheart to the "rich white hunk" to the African-American professor.
13. RADIANCE OF TOMORROW BY ISHMAEL BEAH (2014)
Beah tells the story of several residents of Imperi, a small town in the African nation of Lion Mountain (Sierra Leone), after they return home after a long, horrific civil war that has taken so many of their family, neighbors, and friends. This novel covers a wide range of African experiences in the aftermath of decolonization, conveying the terror, injustice, and disappointment, as well as the optimism, that swept across the region south of the Sahara over the last half-century. If you read this book, you will gain a better understanding of life in Sub-Saharan Africa.
14. RUNNING THE RIFT, BY NAOMI BENARON (2012)
The Rwanda genocide is the central event in Running the Rift, a remarkable novel that tells the story of a young Tutsi man, Nkuba Jean Patrick, a supremely talented runner who aspires to compete in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
15. THE DEATH OF REX NHONGO BY C. B. GEORGE (2016)
The Death of Rex Nhongo is built around a gripping storyline. The cast includes two expatriate families, one British and one American, as well as an extended Zimbabwean family and a thug who works for the Central Intelligence Organization and terrorizes the populace. The author deftly weaves their disparate stories together in a series of intersections that culminate in a satisfying conclusion. The action takes place after the death mentioned in the title, but the story comes full circle in the end. The plot is obviously contrived, but it's a satisfying read.
16. HOMEGOING, BY YAA GYASI (2016)
Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi's extraordinary debut novel, follows the lives of two branches of a Ghanaian family over more than two centuries, one in Ghana and the other in the United States. The novel begins in the mid-eighteenth century, at the height of the slave trade, and follows the family's fortunes through the turbulent years of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, concluding in present-day Ghana.
17. THE HAIRDRESSER OF HARARE BY TENDAI HUCHU (2015)
You could read a dozen nonfiction books about Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe's kleptocracy and still not get a more vivid sense of what life is like there than from Tendai Huchu's recent novel. Huchu conjures up the sad reality of day-to-day life in that beleaguered country in one short work of fiction: 90 percent unemployment, ubiquitous corruption, hyperinflation, ever-present shortages, barely functional electricity service, vicious eviction of white Africans from their farms and businesses, and rabid homophobia.
18. THE POISONWOOD BIBLE BY BARBARA KINGSOLVER (1998)
The theme of colonialism was addressed in some of the twentieth century's greatest works of literature. Things Fall Apart is a novel by Chinua Achebe. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad Franz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster. There are numerous others. Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible isn't frequently mentioned among them. However, it should be. Despite the fact that much of the action takes place after the Belgians have granted the country independence, the book is all about the terrible, lingering effects of colonialism in the Congo. The novel, written in beautiful prose and firmly rooted in the tragic events of the early 1960s, bears witness to the price paid by millions for the greed and racism of the 1960s.
19. A BEND IN THE RIVER BY V. S. NAIPAUL (1979)
In 1960, the chief of staff of the army in the newly independent Belgian Congo led a coup that deposed Patrice Lumumba's democratically elected government. He deposed the men he had installed in power and became the country's dictator five years later. Mobutu Sese Seko was his name. He ruled until 1997, diverting between $4 billion and $15 billion in government funds into offshore accounts. His regime was well-known for its corruption and violations of human rights. And that unflattering image of Africa serves as the backdrop for Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul's celebrated story of the continent in the aftermath of colonization, A Bend in the River.
20. THE SEERSUCKER WHIPSAW BY ROSS THOMAS (1992)
An American campaign manager is paid a large sum of money to assist in the election of a Big Man as president of a country similar to Nigeria. He's a master of dirty tricks, and the candidate's advisers are equally lenient when it comes to campaign ethics. The ensuing campaign is a sight to behold for anyone with even a passing interest in electoral politics.
Also, to learn more about the importance of preserving and appreciating black history and heritage, do stream the TED talk by Don John below. And after you do, stock your libraries, and start reading! I do hope you enjoy the recommendations. Happy Black History Month!
Woohoo
hate it
The poisonwood Bible
Do you think the father in purple hibiscus actually
i feel like these books are the ones i would always avoid
but that is weird cause i like history