In Africa, mental health is something we don’t often talk about. We understand headaches. We understand stomach ulcers and other illnesses that manifest physically. But when it comes to mental health, our understanding becomes amiss. This is more apparent within African families, where many of us are not raised to talk openly about our feelings or emotions, and mental health is still something that often goes unspoken.

However, there are many people dealing with mental health challenges, and in recent years, the conversation has become more open than it used to be. African writers, too, have been exploring these experiences in their work, taking on depression, grief, addiction, suicide, trauma and the ways African families understand and respond to mental health.

From Yewande Omotoso’s An Unusual Grief, which follows a mother trying to understand the life and death of her daughter after her suicide, to Derek Owusu’s The Recovery House, which takes readers inside a recovery facility with a young man recovering from a mental breakdown, these books approach mental health from perspectives that can feel close to home.

If you’re looking for books that take on mental health from an African perspective, or simply looking for something to read during Suicide Prevention Month, here are 10 African books that fit the bill.