Series: The Africa List

Mamadou Diouf unearths the intellectual and cultural traditions that have long defined Africa, proving that history was never just written about Africa, but also by it. For too long, Africa has been framed as an afterthought in world history—a continent written into the margins of time. In Africa in the World's Time, renowned historian Mamadou Diouf dismantles these colonial narratives...

A hopeful, music-infused poetry collection from Congolese poet Alain Mabanckou. These compelling poems by novelist and essayist Alain Mabanckou conjure nostalgia for an African childhood where the fauna, flora, sounds, and smells evoke snapshots of a life forever gone. Mabanckou's poetry is frank and forthright, urging his compatriots to no longer be held hostage by the civil wars and political...

Poetry that serves as an evocative portrayal of diverse landscapes and cultures. In these otherworldly poetry sequences, Samira Negrouche reminds us that "all life is movement," where "time passes through me / beings pass through me / they are me / I am them." The "I" is representative of one voice, three voices, all voices, all rooted in movement as...

Science has given us several explanations for how humans evolved from walking on four limbs to two feet. None, however, is as riveting as what master storyteller Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o offers in The Upright Revolution. Blending myth and folklore with an acute insight into the human psyche and politics, Wa Thiong’o conjures up a fantastic fable about how and why...

A Togolese novel that delivers a rich, intimate portrait of a scholar whose life is inextricably bound to Africa. For French ethnologist Maurice Boyer, Africa is more than a place—it's a dream, a puzzle, a mirror reflecting his desires and doubts. His years of fieldwork in Tèdi, Togo, where he lived among the Tem people and tried to illuminate their...

With clear, conversational prose, this is the first book dedicated entirely to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's writings on translation. Through his many critically acclaimed novels, stories, essays, plays, and memoirs, Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o has been at the forefront of world literature for decades. He has also been, in his own words, "a language warrior," fighting for indigenous African languages...