The other day a friend told me he was considering doing the Russian Reading Challenge for next year, in which you commit to read several Russian novels and you share them with a community of readers. As I poked around on-line, I found many reading challenges (mostly linked from the Ex Libris blog). But despite searching, I could find no reading challenges focused on African literature or books dealing with Africa issues.
So I’m hosting one. The guidelines are at the Africa Reading Challenge page, where I’ll be hosting a list of participants and links to their comments on their books.
Here is my preliminary list for the challenge:
- A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah (memoir, Sierra Leone)
- You Must Set Forth at Dawn, by Wole Soyinka (memoir, Nigeria)
- A Krio Engagement and Other Stories, by Nana Grey-Johnson (short stories, The Gambia)
- Jaime Bunda, Secret Agent, by Pepetela (mystery, Angola)
- I Will Marry When I Want, by Thiong’o (play, Kenya)
- States and Power in Africa, by Herbst (political analysis, continent-wide)
This list may change and I may add to it, but it’s a start.
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