The audiobook for Saara El-Arifi’s Cleopatra, published by HarperCollins on 26 February 2026, is narrated by Andoh, the Ghanaian-British actress who has long been one of the most beloved voices in African literary audio. You can hear a sample on SoundCloud.

El-Arifi’s novel is a first-person reimagining of the last acting pharaoh of Egypt. Structured as a memoir narrated from beyond death, it reclaims Cleopatra from the Roman accounts and millennia of men’s myths that buried her. The novel draws on El-Arifi’s Ghanaian and Sudanese heritage and her MA in African Studies from SOAS, where she specialised in Cleopatra’s myth and its impact on Black women. It is a bold departure from her bestselling fantasy trilogies, and the first-person form makes the audiobook version feel almost inevitable.

Andoh, who plays Lady Danbury in Netflix’s Bridgerton, has narrated over 150 audiobooks and was inducted as a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine in 2022, a lifetime achievement honour awarded to fewer than 50 narrators in the world. Her relationship with African literature in audio is a long and distinguished one. We have covered several chapters of it here at Brittle Paper: she narrated Abi Daré’s The Girl with the Louding Voice and its sequel And So I Roar, Nnedi Okorafor’s Remote Control and Lagoon, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift, Ayobami Adebayo’s Stay with Me, and Taiye Selasi’s Ghana Must Go, among many others. Most recently, she co-narrated Marvellous Michael Anson’s Yoruba-inspired debut fantasy Firstborn of the Sun alongside Folake Olowofoyeku. She has also voiced Chibundu Onuzo’s children’s book, extending her range across age groups and genres.

Audible’s editors, who named Cleopatra one of their picks for March 2026, put it plainly: Andoh brings a regal authority to the narration, and listening to her embody the queen, you do not just hear a story, you witness a pharaoh reclaiming her throne.