55 Anticipated African Books of 2021

by Brittle Paper

January 04, 2021

Hey Brittle Paper readers! 2021 is going to be another awesome year for books by African authors. Here, we present fifty-five titles we’re looking forward to.

Most are scheduled for the first half of the year, but we’ve gotten wind of other titles forthcoming later in the year. And of course, there are titles by Nnedi Okorafor, Eloghosa Osunde, Kobby Ben Ben, and Koleka Putuma, alongside translations of novels by Stella Gaitano and Haji Jabir, that are in the works too.

In the meantime, we highly recommend making space on your bookshelf (or getting a new bookshelf?) for these amazing titles!

Note: all descriptions are excerpted from summaries provided by the books’ publishers.

Sleep Well, My Lady

Sleep Well, My Lady

336 pages

In the sequel to The Missing American, PI Emma Djan investigates the death of Ghanaian fashion icon and social media celebrity, Lady Araba. To solve the case, Emma must not only go on an undercover mission that dredges up trauma from her past, but navigate a long list of suspects. Emma quickly discovers that they are all willing to lie for each other—and that one may still be willing to kill. (Soho Crime, January 12)

Aftershocks

Aftershocks

320 pages

Nadia Owusu lived a nomadic childhood — the instability of which was deepened by family secrets and fractures, both lived and inherited. Aftershocks is the way she hauled herself from the wreckage of her life’s perpetual quaking, the means by which she finally comes to understand that the only ground firm enough to count on is the one written into existence by her own hand. (US: Simon & Schuster/ UK: Sceptre/2021)

The African Novel of Ideas

The African Novel of Ideas

232 pages

The African Novel of Ideas focuses on the role of the philosophical novel and the place of philosophy more broadly in the intellectual life of the African continent, from the early twentieth century to today. In charting philosophy’s evolution from a dominant to marginal presence in African literary discourse across the past hundred years, it assesses the push and pull of subjective experience and abstract thought. (Princeton UP, January 12)

Remote Control

Remote Control

156 pages

The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From hereon in she would be known as Sankofa — a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past. Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion? (Tor/2021)

Out of the Dark Night

Out of the Dark Night

280 pages

In this nuanced consideration of the African experience, Mbembe intervenes in debates about citizenship, identity, democracy, and modernity. The book develops a new reading of African modernity that furthers the notion of Afropolitanism, reconstructing our frameworks for understanding colonial and postcolonial events and expanding our sense of the futures made possible by decolonization. (Columbia UP, January 19)

Formation

Formation

Formation tracks the unlikely series of events and characters that turned a collection of disparate nations into a British colony in 1914. But the story of Nigeria's formation begins much earlier, in 1804 when the jihadists launched their attack on countries along the Niger river. What unfolds is a story of conquests and slavery, betrayals and bravery, rivers and riots, victors and vanquished, all central to understanding modern Black struggles. (Cassava Republic, UK January 19/ US May 18)

We Are All Birds of Uganda

We Are All Birds of Uganda

384 pages

In 1960s Uganda, Hasan is struggling to run his business. But then a new regime seizes power, threatening to sweep away all he has built. In present-day London, Sameer, a young lawyer, is called back to his family home by a tragedy and learns about a past he never knew. Moving between two continents, the book explores racial tensions, generational divides and what it means to belong. (Merky Books, January 21)

Tragedy and Postcolonial Literature

Tragedy and Postcolonial Literature

300 pages

This book examines tragedy and tragic philosophy from the Greeks through Shakespeare to the present day. It explores key themes in the links between suffering and ethics through postcolonial literature. Ato Quayson reconceives how we think of World literature under the singular and fertile rubric of tragedy. (Cambridge UP, UK January 21/ US March 31)

The Ardent Swarm

The Ardent Swarm

203 pages

Sidi lives a hermetic life as a bee whisperer, tending to his beloved “girls” on the outskirts of the desolate village of Nawa. He wakes one morning to find that something has attacked one of his beehives, brutally killing every inhabitant. Heartbroken, he soon learns that a mysterious swarm of vicious hornets committed the mass murder—but where did they come from, and how can he stop them? (Amazon/2021)

Open Water

Open Water

176 pages

Two young people meet at a pub in London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence. (UK: Viking, February 4/ US: Black Cat, April 13)

The Library of the Dead

The Library of the Dead

336 pages

Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker – and they sure do love to talk. Now she speaks to Edinburgh’s dead, carrying messages to those they left behind. It seems harmless enough. Until, that is, the dead whisper that someone’s bewitching children. Ropa will dice with death as she calls on Zimbabwean magic and Scottish pragmatism to hunt down clues. (Tor/2021)

Lightseekers by Femi Kayode

Lightseekers by Femi Kayode

414 pages

Three students are brutally murdered in a Nigerian university town. Their killers are caught on social media, but what no one knows is why they were killed. As the trial begins, investigative psychologist Philip Taiwo is contacted by the father of one of the boys, desperate for answers. But Philip is not a detective, and he soon feels out of his depth. (Mulholland Books/2021)

The Gilded Ones

The Gilded Ones

416 pages

Deka, a 16-year-old, lives in Otera, a patriarchal kingdom where a woman's worth is tied to her purity, and she must bleed to prove it. When Deka bleeds gold, the color of impurity, she faces a consequence worse than death. She is saved by a stranger who tells Deka that she is a near-immortal with exceptional gifts, and offers her a choice: fight for the Emperor or be destroyed. (UK: Usborne; US: Delacorte/2021)

In the Palace of Flowers

In the Palace of Flowers

313 pages

Set in Iran at the end of the nineteenth century, in the Persian royal court of the Qajars, this book is an atmospheric historical novel about Jamila, an Abyssinian slave who stands at the funeral of a Persian nobleman. She realizes that her life will never be acknowledged or mourned with the same significance and sets on a path to find meaning. (Cassava Republic/2021)

Kololo Hill

Kololo Hill

352 pages

Uganda, 1972. A devastating decree is issued: all Ugandan Asians must leave the country in 90 days. For Asha and Pran, recently married, it means abandoning the family business. For Pran’s mother, it means saying goodbye to the house that has been her home for decades. But violence is escalating in Kampala, and people are disappearing. Will they make it to safety in Britain and be given refuge if they do? (Picador, February 18)

Sea Loves Me

Sea Loves Me

416 pages

This is a collection of 64 short stories, 36 of which appear in English for the first time. They include early stories that reflect the harshness of life under Portuguese colonialism; to magical tales of rural Africa; to contemporary fables of the fluidity of race and gender, environmental disaster, and the clash between the countryside and the city. (Biblioasis, US February 23/ UK March 11)

In the Company of Men

In the Company of Men

160 pages

Two boys go hunting in a forest, shooting down bats and cooking them over an open fire. Within a month, they are dead, bodies ravaged by an insidious disease that decimates their village and quickly spreads beyond. In a series of moving snapshots, Tadjo illustrates the terrible extent of the Ebola epidemic through the eyes of those affected. (Other/2021)

The Actual True Story of Ahmed and Zarga

The Actual True Story of Ahmed and Zarga

176 pages

Ahmed is a camel herder, as his father was before him and as his young son will be after him. But Ahmed’s world is threatened—by French colonization, urbanization, and a deadly drought. When a precious camel named Zarga goes missing, Ahmed sets off on a journey that will test every facet of his Bedouin desert survival skills. (Ohio UP/2021)

A Long Way from Douala

A Long Way from Douala

160 pages

Choupi and Simon, a neighborhood friend, are looking for Roger, Choupi’s brother who has gone to Europe in search of football fame. The bus trip north nearly ends in disaster when, at a pit stop, Simon goes wandering in search of grilled caterpillars. Through a series of joyful sparky vignettes, Cameroon life is revealed in all its ups and downs.(Other Press, US September 28)

Your Crib, My Qibla

Your Crib, My Qibla

108 pages

Your Crib, My Qibla interrogates loss, the death of a child, and a father’s pursuit of language able to articulate grief. In these poems, the language of memory functions as a space of mourning, connecting the dead with the world of the living. This collection explores grief, the fleeting nature of healing, and the constant obsession of memory as a language to reach the dead. (U of Nebraska P/2021)

The Rinehart Frames

The Rinehart Frames

126 pages

These poems juxtapose the character of Rinehart from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man with the film 24 Frames by Abbas Kiarostami, questioning the boundaries of diaspora and narrative through a tethering of voices and forms that infringe on monolithic categorizations of Blackness and what can be intersected with it. (U of Nebraska P/2021)

Home Is Not a Country

Home Is Not a Country

224 pages

Nima doesn't feel understood. What’s more, Nima must grapple with the phantom of a life not chosen, the name her parents didn't give her at birth: Yasmeen. That other name, that other girl, might just be more real than Nima knows. A mesmerizing novel in verse, Home Is Not a Country grapples with family, identity, and finding yourself in the most unexpected places. (Make Me A World/2021)

Zabor, or the Psalms

Zabor, or the Psalms

384 pages

Zabor grew up in the company of books, which teach him a new language. Ever since he can remember, he is convinced he has a gift: if he writes, he will stave off death; those captured in the sentences of his notebooks will live longer. But when he learns one night that his estranged father is going to die, can he write enough to save him? (Other Press, March 2)

Unbury Our Dead with Song

Unbury Our Dead with Song

Four Ethiopian musicians compete to see who can sing the best Tizita. Taking place in an illegal boxing hall in Nairobi, Kenya, the competition is covered by a US educated Kenyan journalist, John Thandi Manfredi. As he learns more about the Tizita and the multiple meanings of beauty, he uncovers that behind each of the musicians, there are layered lives and secrets. (Cassava Republic, UK March 2/ US May 18)

Professional Troublemaker

Professional Troublemaker

304 pages

With humor and honesty, and guided by the influence of her professional troublemaking Nigerian grandmother, Funmilayo Faloyin, Luvvie Ajayi Jones walks us through what we must get right within ourselves before we can do the things that scare us; how to use our voice for a greater good; and how to put movement to the voice we've been silencing — because truth-telling is a muscle. (Penguin Life/2021)

How Beautiful We Were

How Beautiful We Were

384 pages

Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, this novel tells of a people living in fear amid environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Promises of cleanup and financial reparations to the villagers are made—and ignored. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back. Their struggle will last for decades and come at a steep price. (Random House/2021)

Alex La Guma: Culture and Liberation

Alex La Guma: Culture and Liberation

624 pages

This is the first collection dedicated to Alex La Guma’s exile writing. It includes accounts of his travels to Algeria, Lebanon, Vietnam, Soviet Central Asia, and elsewhere, along with his assessments of writers like Gordimer and Gorky. (Seagull Books, March 15)

Brotherhood

Brotherhood

208 pages

This searing debut takes place in the imaginary town of Kalep, where a fundamentalist Islamist government has spread its brutal authority. Mbougar Sarr explores how resistance and heroism can often give way to cowardice, all while giving voice to the moral ambiguities and personal struggles involved in each of his characters’ search to impose the values they hold most dear. (Europa Editions, UK March 18/ US July 6)

An Ordinary Wonder

An Ordinary Wonder

336 pages

Oto leaves for boarding school with one plan: excel and escape his cruel home. Falling in love with his roommate was certainly not on the agenda. Back home, weighed down by the expectations of their wealthy and powerful family, the love of Oto's twin sister wavers. As their world begins to crumble, Oto must make drastic choices that will alter the family's lives forever. (Dialogue/2021)

Descendants of the First by Reni K. Amayo

Descendants of the First by Reni K. Amayo

432 pages

The king is dead. Deep cracks are forming throughout the kingdom of Nri with whispers of deadly successors. Despite having the same face, it seems the deepest crack is between Naala and Sinai, reunited twin goddesses, who must put their differences aside as they travel through a broken Nri. (Onwe Press/2021)

The Fugitives

The Fugitives

336 pages

Rushdy is a disaffected secondary school teacher and the son of an original Kamanga King, a past Khartoum jazz band. Determined to see a life beyond his own home, he sets out to revive the band. An unlikely group forms, traveling from the familiarity of Khartoum to the chaos of Donald Trump’s America. Mahjoub weaves a universal tale of music, belonging and love. (Canongate/2021).

Peaces

Peaces

272 pages

When Otto and Xavier Shin declare their love, an aunt gifts them a trip on a sleeper train to mark their new commitment—and to get them out of her house. Otto and Xavier quickly deduce that The Lucky Day is no ordinary locomotive. As further clues and questions pile up, and the trip upends everything they thought they knew, they begin to see connections to their own pasts that now bind them together. (Riverhead, April 6)

The Promise

The Promise

256 pages

An Afrikaans woman’s death and the failure to fulfill her promise to her black maid Salome sets in motion a series of devastating tragedies. Haunted by this unmet promise, the three siblings of the Swart family drift apart across South Africa: Anton, who bitterly resents his life's unfulfilled promises; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt. (Europa Editions/2021)

The Bridgetower Sonata

The Bridgetower Sonata

352 pages

Acclaimed Congolese author Emmanuel Dongala focuses his laser-sharp wit in this historical novel about the "Black Mozart," a.k.a. George Bridgetower, a young violin prodigy who took the courtly world of 18th century Europe by storm—and surprise, given his mixed-race parentage. The novel brims with lively detail, dialogue, and cameos from notable historical figures. (Schaffner Press, April 15)

One of Them

One of Them

224 pages

This deeply personal and unflinching memoir, which focuses on Okwonga's time at Eton as a young Black man from a predominantly working-class town, engages wider questions about privilege, the distribution of wealth, the rise of the far right in the UK, systemic racism, the ‘boys’ club’ of government and the power of the few to control the fate of the many. (Unbound, April 15)

Refugee

Refugee

256 pages

Persecuted for political reasons, Mbolela left the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2002, enduring corrupt customs officials, duplicitous smugglers, Saharan ambushes, and untenable living conditions in his search for a new home. Mbolela also recounts how he became an advocate for migrant rights. His memoir is an insightful account of a global crisis. (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, April 20)

A Blood Condition

A Blood Condition

80 pages

This poetry collection tells a story of inheritance: the people, places, cultures, and memoires that form us...From London to the banks of the Zambezi river, these poems consider change and permanence, grief and joy, and the painful ongoing process of letting go. (Chatto & Windus/2021)

Alien Stories

Alien Stories

200 pages

These 18 startling stories, each centered around an encounter with the unexpected, explore what it means to be an alien. With a nod to the dual meaning of alien as both foreigner and extraterrestrial, Osondu turns familiar science-fiction tropes and immigration narratives on their heads. (BOA Editions, May 11)

Son of the Storm

Son of the Storm

496 pages

In the thriving city of Bassa, Danso is a clever but disillusioned scholar who longs for a life beyond the rigid family and political obligations expected of the city's elite. A way out presents itself when Lilong, a skin-changing warrior, shows up wounded in his barn. Danso and Lilong set out on a journey that reveals histories violently suppressed and magic only found in lore. (Orbit/2021)

The Window Seat

The Window Seat

272 pages

In this essay collection, Forna writes about displacement, trauma and memory, love, and how we coexist and encroach on the non-human world. Movement is a constant here. For instance, in the title piece, “The Window Seat,” she reveals the unexpected enchantments of commercial air travel. Deeply meditative and written with a wry humor, the book confirms Forna’s place in international letters. (Grove Atlantic, US May 18/ UK May 27)

Bamboozled by Jesus

Bamboozled by Jesus

320 pages

In this frank, fresh advice book, Orji takes readers on a journey through 25 life lessons, gleaned from her experiences and her favorite source of inspiration: the Bible. Orji infuses wit and heart in sharing pointers like why the way up is sometimes down, and how fear is synonymous to food poisoning. Her joyful, confident approach to God will inspire everyone to catapult themselves out of the mundane and into the magnificent. (Flatiron/2021)

The Fortune Men

The Fortune Men

352 pages

Mahmood Mattan is a fixture in Cardiff's Tiger Bay, 1952. He is many things, but not a murderer. So when a shopkeeper is brutally killed and all eyes fall on him, he isn’t too worried. It is only in the run-up to the trial that it dawns on Mahmood that he is fighting for his life against conspiracy, prejudice and cruelty, and that the truth may not be enough to save him. (Viking/2021)

The Baby Is Mine

The Baby Is Mine

128 pages

When his girlfriend throws him out during the pandemic, Bambi has to go to his Uncle's house in lock-down Lagos. He arrives during a blackout, and is surprised to find his Aunty Bidemi sitting in a candlelit room with another woman. They both claim to be the mother of the baby boy, fast asleep in his crib. Who is lying and who is telling the truth? (Atlantic Books, May 27)

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

432 pages

When two Niveus Private Academy students, Devon Richards and Chiamaka Adebayo, are elected as class prefects, it looks like their year is off to an amazing start. But someone named Aces begins using text messages to reveal secrets that threaten their carefully planned futures. (Feiwel and Friends/2021)

Walking on Cowrie Shells

Walking on Cowrie Shells

176 pages

Caine Prize finalist Nkweti mixes deft realism with clever inversions of genre in her debut. The stories range from a murder investigation driven by statistics to one organized by the changing hairstyles of the main character. Pulling from mystery, horror, realism, myth, and graphic novels, Nkweti showcases the complexity and vibrance of characters whose lives span Cameroonian and American cultures. (Graywolf, June 1)

Sankofa

Sankofa

256 pages

Anna grew up in England with her white mother knowing very little about her African father. Her mother's death leads her to find her father's diaries, and she learns that he is the president — some would say the dictator — of Bamana in West Africa. She decides to track him down. So begins a funny, painful, fascinating journey, and an exploration of race, identity and what we pass on to our children. (Virago, June 3)

Female Fear Factory

Female Fear Factory

Drawing on examples from around the world — from Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa to Saudi Arabia, the Americas and Europe — Gqola traces the construction and machinations of the female fear factory, exposing its lies, myths, and seductions. She shows how seemingly disparate effects, like driving bans, street harassment, coercive professors, and so on are the products of the ever-turning machinery of the female fear factory, and its use of fear as a tool of patriarchal subjugation and punishment. (Cassava Republic, June 22)

Dear Senthuran

Dear Senthuran

240 pages

In this memoir, Emezi traces the unfolding of a self and the journey of a creative spirit stepping into power in the human world. Their story weaves through transformative decisions about their gender and body, their precipitous path to success, and the turmoil of relationships on an emotional, romantic, and spiritual plane, culminating in a book that is as tender as it is brutal. (US: Riverhead; UK: Faber & Faber/2022)

The River in the Belly

The River in the Belly

152 pages

Created originally as part of a multi-disciplinary work of poetry, music, video, and dance performed in Europe in 2019, The River in My Belly shows the Congo River as it runs in real life and through Mujila’s body and mind; he contemplates his native river and the decades of upheaval the Democratic Republic of Congo has gone through, in turns berating and serenading a homeland from exile in Austria. (Deep Vellum/2021)

In the Country of Others

In the Country of Others

240 pages

Mathilde, a spirited young Frenchwoman, falls in love with Amine, a handsome Moroccan soldier in the French army during WWII. After the war, the couple starts a farm in Morocco. While Amine tries to cultivate the unforgiving terrain, Mathilde feels suffocated by the harsh climate. Isolated, she struggles with assimilation and classism amidst a rise in violence that will lead to Morocco’s independence. (Penguin, August 10)

The Upper World by Femi Fadugba

The Upper World by Femi Fadugba

400 pages

Esso is caught in a deadly feud when he realizes he has the ability to access a world where he can see glimpses of the past and the future. A generation away, Rhia is walking to football practice in 2035, unaware that the mysterious stranger she’s about to meet desperately needs her help to avert a bullet fired fifteen years ago. (Penguin Random House, August 19)

The Selfless Act of Breathing

The Selfless Act of Breathing

320 pages

A story of millennial existential angst told through the eyes of a young Londoner, Michael, who seems to have it all — a promising future, a solid career, strong friendships, a blossoming love story. But it's the unbearable weight of life that leads him to decide to take his own. Although he finds solace in the people that surround him, he alone must decide if his life is worth living. (Dialogue, October 7)

An Unusual Grief

An Unusual Grief

240 pages

When her daughter Yinka dies, Mojisola is finally forced to stop running away from the difficulties in their relationship, and also come to terms with Yinka the woman. Through stepping into Yinka's shoes, Mojisola comes to a better understanding not only of her estranged daughter, but also herself, as she learns to carve a place for herself beyond the labels of wife and mother. (Cassava Republic/2021)

My Life as a Chameleon by DIana Anyakwo

My Life as a Chameleon by DIana Anyakwo

384 pages

This young adult novel tells the story of Lily, a young girl in Lagos, the daughter of an Irish mother and a Nigerian father who suffers from schizophrenia. Lily is sent to live in England, but again struggles to fit in. (Atom, November 4)

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