Let’s be real, some books sit on our shelves more than they get read. You want to say you’ve read them. Maybe you’ve even said so at a dinner party or on a date. But in reality, you’re still stuck somewhere around page 17, trying but failing to make it through a dense paragraph without getting distracted by Instagram reels.

Here are ten African books that people love to talk about even if they haven’t finished them. Or started. Or gotten past chapter one. No judgment. We’ve all been there.

 

1. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
To admit you haven’t read Things Fall Apart is treason in some parts of the world. Chances are, you won’t dare confess it. But to be fair, it’s also one of those books that people genuinely believe they’ve read because it is so widely discussed. It is such a classic that many either (wrongly) assume they’ve read it or pretend they have.

2. Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
A masterpiece, yes. But also nearly 800 pages of political allegory and satire. The kind of book people call “important” while quietly reading summaries on Wikipedia.

3.  Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila
This novel drops you into the chaotic nightlife of an unnamed Congolese city. Owning Tram 83 or casually mentioning it signals that you’re in on contemporary African experimental fiction. The writing is hilarious if you catch it in the right mood, but you’d still have to contend with strangely named characters and weird scene jumps.

4. The Famished Road by Ben Okri
Did you know that Bridget Jones once tried, and failed, to finish The Famished Road? Yes, the beloved heroine of Helen Fielding’s ’90s classic gave Ben Okri’s Booker‑winning novel a shot. In her defense, Bridget struggled with a lot back then—quitting smoking, dodging embarrassment, and avoiding the wrong suitor. Most people never noticed her Okri moment because it didn’t make it into the film, but it’s there in the book. And honestly, she’s not alone. The Famished Road may be dreamy and brilliant, but it’s also nearly 400 pages of poetic, meandering, plot‑averse prose.

5. Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka
When it became a Netflix film, many people suddenly had strong opinions about it, despite having never cracked open the play. The critiques of “it’s not faithful to the original” often mask the reality: most people haven’t read the original.

6. The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell
500-page genre-bending epic that spans a century and three families and sits somewhere between realism, satire, sci-fi, and family saga. People want to have read it. But the sheer ambition of it makes it easy to get stuck.

7. Women of the Aeroplane by Kojo Laing
This one is for the true geeks of African literature. Laing is a literary unicorn. His prose reads like nothing you’ve ever encountered. The book has a devoted, elite following, and saying you’ve read it signals serious literary clout. At the same time, it is so elusive that no one would dare quiz you on the plot. A perfect book to claim you’ve read because who’s going to argue?

8. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Amos Tutuola
This book is strange in the best way. It has a kind of dream logic that is hard to describe. You probably picked it up thinking, “This is going to be an experience” and it is. But somewhere along the way, maybe around the third or fourth ghost encounter, things got confusing. You meant to keep going, but it never quite happened. Still, you like having it on your shelf. Just saying the title is a whole vibe.

9. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Between Instagram and TikTok, everyone has an Ifemelu in their life, a content-creating, cheeky, diaspora friend who is annoying and brilliant. Adichie’s characters are so relatable and quotable that it’s easy to feel like you know the book, even if you’ve only seen excerpts on your feed.

10. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin
Hands down one of the most lovable books in African literature. People can’t get enough of Shoneyin’s special brand of polygamy drama. But it’s also the kind of book where people pretend to know “the secret” without ever needing to say what it is since no one wants to be that person who spoils it. Which makes it the perfect book to fake-read. The secrecy of the secret does the work for you!