Africa |
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Periodically during my several decades of teaching history, I would hear some high school students refer to the continent of Africa as a country. In fact, not only is it composed of many countries, but as shown in a variety of memoirs below, Africa has a huge variety of fascinating cultural and ethnic groups, as well as a wide diversity of landscapes, and animal and plant species. Some of the titles below, such as Ted Morgan's
To read reviews about a book or order it, click on its title. To quickly reach one of the subtopics immediately below, click on it.
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| Algeria | Botswana | Congo | General | Kenya | Liberia | Mozambique | Nigeria | Rhodesia (see Zimbabwe) | |
Alleg, Henri. The Question. Bison Books, 2006. The French government banned this book about France's use of torture during the war in Algeria.
Djebar, Assia. Algerian White. Seven Stories Press, 2003. Via her account of the fate of 3 friends who were killed in the aftermath of Algeria's 1956 struggle for independence, author discusses the religious extremism and intellectual persecution that plagues our country
Morgan, Ted. My Battle of Algiers: A Memoir. Harper, 2007. Morgan was an officer in the French army during the Battle of Algiers.
Scott, Robyn. Twenty Chickens for a Saddle: The Story of an African Childhood. 2009. A “European” recalls her happy childhood in Botswana . Penguin, 2009
Devlin, Larry. Chief of Station, Congo: A Memoir of 1960-67. PublicAffairs, 2007. By the CIA station chief in Congo, a hotbed of postcolonial political intrigue, during the height of the Cold War.
Eritrea (see other wars/Eritrea)
Hemingway, Ernest. Green Hills of Africa. Scribner, 1998. Hemingway's classic travelogue of his 1933 two months safari in East Africa's big-game country.
Gallman, Kuki. I Dreamed of Africa. Penguin 2000. A 25 year old Italian woman moves to Kenya with her husband and son. After the husband and her son are accidentally killed, she stays on with her newborn daughter, and starts a ranch and a foundation to preserve African wildlife from poachers.
Huxley, Elizabeth. The Flame Trees Of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood. Penguin Classics.Maathai, Wangari. Unbowed: A Memoir. Anchor, 2007. Female Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s memoir of life as educator, environmentalist, and member of Parliament.
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| Algeria | Botswana | Congo | General | Kenya | Liberia | Mozambique | Nigeria | Rhodesia (see Zimbabwe) | |
Cooper, Helene. The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood. Simon & Schuster, 2009. Daughter of one of Liberia's elite families discusses growing up during a violent civil war; later, a coup threw her people out of power and she moved to the US.
Powers, William. Blue Clay People : Seasons on Africa's Fragile Edge. Bloomsbury. 2006. Former director of Catholic Relief Services in Liberia, one of Africa's most dangerous and poorest countries on the frustration of working under adverse conditions.
Sirleaf, Ellen Johnson. This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa's First Woman President. Harper, 2009.
Serras, Adelino, Claire, Fiona and Pires, Capstick. The Winds of Havoc: A Memoir of Adventure and Destruction in Deepest Africa. St. Martin's Press, 2001.
Soyinka, Wole. You Must Set Forth at Dawn: A Memoir. Random House. 2007. A playwright and political activist recalls his life as a literary figure and his efforts to fight corruption in his country.
Rhodesia (see Zimbabwe)
Rwanda
Ilibagiza, Immaculee. Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust. Hay House, 2007. The author, whose family was murdered in 1994, during Rwanda’s bloody genocide, describes her experiences of hiding for 91 days to escape the fate of her loved ones and how she afterward forgave the murderers.
Mushikiwabo, Louise and Kramer, Jack. Rwanda Means the Universe: A Native's Memoir of Blood and Bloodlines. St. Martin's Press, 2006. Author discusses her Tutsi family and national history to explain the genocide of 800,000 people in 1994.
Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. A children's-rights advocate recalls growing up in Sierra Leone in the 1990s, during its violent civil war which saw him being recruited at age 12 into the national army.
Ali, Ayaan Hirsi. Infidel. Free Press, 2008. By the controversial Somali-born member of the Dutch parliament, a victim of genital mutilation and a forced unwanted marriage who became a harsh critic of Islamic culture.
Dirie, Waris and Miller, Cathleen. Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad. Harper Perennial, 1999. A European fashion model, originally from Somalia describes her metamorphosis from desert nomad into jetsetter and human rights activist.
Korn, Fadumo. Born in the Big Rains: A Memoir of Somalia and Survival. Feminist Press, 2004. An international activist on both her life-altering transformation after she undergoes a brutal female circumcision at age seven, and her journey to recovery and empowerment.
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| Algeria | Botswana | Congo | General | Kenya | Liberia | Mozambique | Nigeria | Rhodesia (see Zimbabwe) | |
Canby, Thomas Y. From Botswana to the Bering Sea: My Thirty Years with National Geographic. Shearwater Books, 1998.
Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla. A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid. Mariner Books, 2004. An extraordinary dialogue. between a psychologist who grew up in a black South African township, and the now imprisoned former commanding officer of state-sanctioned death squads under apartheid.
Gordimer, Nadine. Telling Times: Writing and Living. W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2010. By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature on historical events in Africa.
Steinbach, Alice. Educating Alice : Adventures of a Curious Woman. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2005.
Suzman, Helen. In No Uncertain Terms: A South African Memoir. Knopf. 1993. A member of the South African parliament for thirty-six years, Suzman worked for improved economic conditions and against racism.
Tayler, Jeffrey. Glory in a Camel's Eye: A Perilous Trek Through the Greatest African Desert. Mariner Books, 2005.
Ajak, Benjamin, Deng, Benson, Deng, Alephonsian and Bernstein, Judy. They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky: The Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan. PublicAffairs 2006. By three child refugees of the Sudanese civil war.
Bashir, Halima and Lewis, Damien . Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur. Ballantine/One World, 2009. Physician and refugee now in London recalls life in Darfur before and after the ethnic war, including her own genital mutilation, rape, and loss of family.
Nazer, Mende and Lewis, Damien. Slave: My True Story. Public Affairs, 2003. About the author’s slavery and escape when kidnapped at 12 from her Sudanese home by Arabian slave traders.
Fuller, Alexandra. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood. Random House, 2003. A white girl recalls her childhood during the Rhodesian civil war, her parents' racism and interactions between whites and blacks.
Godwin, Peter. When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa. Back Bay, 2008. Author on how his dying father informed him that he was a Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivor while simultaneously their country, ruled by the authoritarian Robert Mugabe was collapsing.
St. John, Lauren. Rainbow's End: A Memoir of Childhood, War and an African Farm. Scribner, 2008. Daughter of white settlers recalls the civil war (1971-1979) which brought black rule to the former Rhodesia.
Tucker, Neely. Love in the Driest Season: A Family Memoir. Three Rivers Press, 2005. White Mississippian foreign correspondent, and his African-American wife, are posted to Zimbabwe, where after witnessing the effect of the AIDS crisis on children, they adopt an infected child encountering cultural taboos against such adoption.
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| Algeria | Botswana | Congo | General | Kenya | Liberia | Mozambique | Nigeria | Rhodesia (see Zimbabwe) | |