Jude Idada is an award-winning Nigerian author and filmmaker. He has written, performed, and published an expansive catalogue of novels, plays, and movies. His children’s book Boom Boom won him the NLNG Prize for Literature. He is the first in a 3-part series we are running on what African authors are reading. Idada tells us what he is currently reading but also shares his to-be-read list, in addition to recommending books he’s read in the past and really loved. Scroll to see the book covers and synopsis.

I am currently reading At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop and translated by Anna Moschovakis and Faridah Abiké -Iyimídé’s Ace of Spades.

On my to-be-read list are Wole Soyinka’s Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth, Saddiq Dzukogi’s Your Crib, my Qibla, E.C Osondu’s Alien stories, Femi Fadugba’s The Upper World, Olukorede S. Yishau’s Vaults of Secrets, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah’s The Sex Lives of African Women, Olivette Otele’s African Europeans:An Untold Story, Maryse Condé’s Waiting for the Waters to Rise, Teresa Oyibo Ameh’s The Torn Petal, Hafsan Sayya’s We are all Birds of Uganda, Namina Forna’s The Gilded Ones, Iquo Dianaabasi’s Èfó rírò & Other Stories, and Max Siollun’s What Britain Did to Nigeria.

These are the books I recommend for your reading, which I have read and some I have reread in the past 24 months: Maryse Condé’s Segu, Abi Daré’s The Girl with the Louding Voice, Achalugo Chioma Ezekobe’s Mmirinzo: The Ones Who Are Rain, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s Dreams And Assorted Nightmares; Titilope Sonuga’s This is How We Disappear; Femi Kayode’s Lightseekers; Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s Kintu; Ben Okri’s The Famished Road, Esosa Daniel-Oniko’s I Have a Secret I Must Tell, Chibundu Onuzo’s Welcome to Lagos, A’aisha Abdulkareem’s Yar’fari, Africa Ukoh’s 54 Silhouettes, Tade Ipadeola’s The Sahara Testaments.