Adwoa Badoe

Book is in excellent reading condition for being a library book. I don’t think it was ever read. 

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

New York

University life is better than Charlotte ever dreamed, but her exposure to new ideas in 1981 Ghana will be an exciting and dangerous adventure. For eighteen-year-old Charlotte, university life is better than she'd ever dreamed -- a sophisticated and generous roommate, the camaraderie of dorm living, parties, clubs and boyfriends. Most of all, Charlotte is exposed to new ideas, and in 1981 Ghana, this may be the most exciting - and most dangerous -- adventure of all. At first Charlotte basks in her wonderful new freedom, especially being out of the watchful eye of her controlling and opinionated father. She suddenly finds herself with no shortage of male attention, including her charismatic political science professor, fellow student activist Banahene, and Asare, a wealthy oil broker who invites Charlotte to travel with him and showers her with expensive gifts, including a coveted passport. But Ghana is fraught with a history of conflict. And in the middle of her freshman year, the government is overthrown, and three judges are abducted and murdered. As political forces try to mobilize students to advance their own agendas, Charlotte is drawn into the world of student politics. She's good at it, she's impassioned, and she's in love with Banahene. "The struggle continues! Aluta! Aluta continua!" she shouts, rallying the crowd with the slogan of the oppressed. But her love of the spotlight puts her in the public eye. And when Asare entrusts her with a mysterious package of documents, she suddenly realizes she may be in real danger. But it's too late. As she is on her way to a meeting, Charlotte is picked up by national security, and her worst nightmares come true. And in the end, she must make a difficult and complicated decision about whether to leave her education, and her beloved Ghana, behind. A heartfelt story told with uncompromising honesty, about what happens when youthful idealism meets the harsh realities of power. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.3 Describe how a particular story's or drama's plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.6 Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text.

Aluta

306f997d-89a2-4867-b793-9215ee0ef5d9-1

Krystle Zara Appiah

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Mississippi

A Novel

A provocative debut novel about a marriage in crisis that asks the question: Can you ever be rooted in a home that's on the brink of collapse?

"Beautiful, gripping, and tender . . . a powerful and unforgettable meditation on love, belonging, and motherhood."--Emilia Hart, author of Weyward

On a Spring afternoon in London, Sam hops the stairs of his flat two at a time. There's £1,300 missing from his and his wife, Efe's, shared bank account and his calls are going straight to voicemail. When he finally reaches someone, he learns Efe is nearly 5,000 miles away as their toddler looks around and asks, "Where's Mummy?"

When Efe and Sam met as teens headed for university, it seemed everyone knew they were meant to be. Efe, newly arrived in the UK from Ghana and sinking under the weight of her parents' expectations, found comfort in the focused and idealistic Sam. He was stable, working toward a law career, and had an unwavering vision for their future. A vision Efe, now a decade later, finds slightly insufferable. From the outside, they're the picture-perfect couple everyone imagined, but there are cracks in the frame. 

When Efe and Sam are faced with an unplanned pregnancy, they find themselves on opposing sides. Fatherhood is everything he has dreamed of, but Efe feels stuck in a nightmare. And when a new revelation emerges, they are forced to confront just how radically different they want their lives to be. Already swallowed by the demands of motherhood and feeling the dreams she had slipping away once again, Efe disappears. 

Rootless is a heartrending love story about motherhood and sacrifice, providing an intimate look at what happens after a marriage collapses, leading two people to rediscover what they ultimately want--and if it's still each other. As Efe says, "Love and regret aren't mutually exclusive."

Rootless

78ee374a-06a3-4e6a-b8e1-892a32aac2f6-1

#paperback #africanliterature #fiction #theshadowking #maazamengiste 

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

West Virginia

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020, this is an utterly captivating novel about female strength. Set during Mussolini's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, The Shadow King casts a light on the women soldiers written out of African history.

The Shadow King

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#paperback #fiction #literary #music #shortstories #africa #africanliterature #nigeria #music #romance #anthologies 

Massachusetts

Stories (from Songs)

"A dozen interlinked, music-oriented stories set in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, where Garricks was raised... Each songlike story feels like a breakout hit encapsulating the brokenness and the beauty in life's soundtrack."--Booklist, starred review

"Beautifully woven . . . a magical delight."--Hari Kunzru, author of White Tears

A Broken People's Playlist is set to the soundtrack of life, comprised of twelve music-inspired tales about love, the human condition, micro-moments, and the search for meaning and sometimes, redemption. It is also Chimeka Garricks's love letter to his native city, Port Harcourt, introducing us to a cast of indelible characters in these loosely interlocked tales.

There is the teenage wannabe-DJ eager to play his first gig even as his family disastrously falls apart--who reappears many years later as an unhappy middle-aged man drunk-calling his ex-wife; a man who throws a living funeral for his dying brother; three friends who ponder penis captivus and one's peculiar erectile dysfunction; a troubled woman who tries to find her peace-place in the world, helped by a headful of songs and a pot of ginger tea.

Infused with the author's resonant and evocative storytelling, each page holds "the depth of a novel" (Hari Kunzru); a character, a moment that will--like a favorite song--long linger in the heart and mind.

A Broken People's Playlist (ARC)

08c2b292-06af-44b8-8745-3b3cb50cc337-1

Okwiri Oduor

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Indiana

This astonishing, devastating debut novel, riven through with mystery and magic, tells the story of a lonely girl living in a small African town and her struggle to free herself from her mercurial, charming mother. Ayosa is a wandering spirit—joyous, exuberant, filled to the brim with longing. Her only companions in her grandmother’s crumbling house are as lonely as Ayosa herself: the ghostly Fatumas, whose eyes are the size of bay windows, who teach her to dance and wail at the death news; the Jolly-Annas, cruel birds who cover their solitude with spiteful laughter; the milkman, who never greets Ayosa and whose milk tastes of mud; and Sindano, the kind owner of a café no one ever visits. Unexpectedly, miraculously, one day Ayosa finds a friend. Yet she is always fixed on her beautiful mama, Nabumbo Promise: a mysterious and aloof photographer, she comes and goes as she pleases, with no apology or warning. Set at the intersection of the spirit world and the human one, Things They Lost is a stunning and unforgettable novel that unfurls the dizzying dualities of love, at its most intoxicating and all-encompassing.

Things They Lost-ARC

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#remyngamije #blackwriters #bookclubfavorite #comingofage #africanliterature #africanlit


"Meet the future of African literature" (Mukoma Wa Ngugi, author of Nairobi Heat) with this "gorgeous, wildly funny, and, above all, profoundly moving and humane" (Peter Orner, author of Am I Alone Here) coming-of-age tale following a young man who is forced to flee his homeland of Rwanda and make sense of his reality.

Nobody ever makes it to the start of a story, not even the people in it. The most one can do is make some sort of start and then work toward some kind of ending.

One might as well start with Séraphin: playlist-maker, nerd-jock hybrid, self-appointed merchant of cool, Rwandan, stifled and living in Namibia. Soon he will leave the confines of his family life for the cosmopolitan city of Cape Town, where loyal friends, hormone-saturated parties, adventurous conquests, and race controversies await. More than that, his long-awaited final year in law school promises to deliver a crucial puzzle piece of the Great Plan immigrant: a degree from a prestigious university.

But a year is more than the sum of its parts, and en route to the future, the present must be lived through and even the past must be survived in this "hilarious and heartbreaking" (Adam Smyer, author of Knucklehead) intersection of pre- and post-1994 Rwanda, colonial and post-independence Windhoek, Paris and Brussels in the 70s, Nairobi public schools, and the racially charged streets of Cape Town.

"Visually striking and beautiful told with youthful energy and hard-won wisdom" (Rabeah Ghaffari, author of To Keep the Sun Alive), The Eternal Audience of One is a lyrical and piquant tale of family, migration, friendship, war, identity, and race that will sweep you off your feet.

The Eternal Audience of One

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William Kamkwamba

Bryan Mealer

Virginia

Young Readers Edition

After his African village was hit by a drought, 14-year-old William Kamkwamba learned about electrical windmills at a small library, and after weeks of foraging for junk parts, he did the incredible. Full color.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

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I honestly just needed this for a class. 

California

Chinua Achebe

The contemporary African writer's classic novel depicting the destruction of traditional tribal life by the white man

Things Fall Apart

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Minor shelf wear to cover. Pages are free of markings and page folding. Binding is tight. 

Texas

Kofi Awoonor

Louisiana

Selected Poems, 1963-1985

Poetry. Kofi Awoonor is one of Ghana's leading literary figures, and this book collects all three of his published books of poetry into one collection, adding some new poems. Interest in Awoonor has grown recently as he has begun appearing at literary festivals. He is active in the Ghanaian government, serving as Ghana's Ambassador to Brazil and to the United Nations. UNTIL THE MORNING AFTER includes Awoonor's "The House By The Sea" which details his years as a political prisoner.

Until the Morning After

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Pennsylvania

Washington

#paperback #fiction #nonfiction #juvenilefiction #middlegrade #newyorktimesbestseller #africa #africanliterature

Utah

A. Igoni Barrett

Michigan

"First published in 2015 by Chatto & Windus, an imprint of Vintage/ Penguin Random House UK, London"--Title page verso.

Blackass

762f6295-8cb8-481f-b33e-c1158ee6da03-1

#paperback #africanliterature Has sticker on back from bookstore and light annotations 

New Jersey

Anita Kopacz

Read once in a smoke-free home. Excellent condition. Description: ““Spellbinding...A captivating debut.” —Harper’s Bazaar ​

​​In this stirring and lyrical debut novel—perfect for fans of The Water Dancer and the Legacy of Orïsha series—the Yoruba deity of the sea, Yemaya, is brought to vivid life as she discovers the power of Black resilience, love, and feminine strength in antebellum America. 

Shallow Waters imagines Yemaya, an Orïsha—a deity in the religion of Africa’s Yoruba people—cast into mid-1800s America. We meet Yemaya as a young woman, still in the care of her mother and not yet fully aware of the spectacular power she possesses to protect herself and those she holds dear.

The journey laid out in Shallow Waters sees Yemaya confront the greatest evils of this era; transcend time and place in search of Obatala, a man who sacrifices his own freedom for the chance at hers; and grow into the powerful woman she was destined to become. We travel alongside Yemaya from her native Africa and on to the “New World,” with vivid pictures of life for those left on the outskirts of power in the nascent Americas.

Yemaya realizes the fighter within, travels the Underground Railroad in search of the mysterious stranger Obatala, and crosses paths with icons of our history on the road to freedom. Shallow Waters is a nourishing work of ritual storytelling from promising debut author Anita Kopacz.”

“Spellbinding...A captivating debut.” —Harper’s Bazaar ​ ​​In this stirring and lyrical debut novel—perfect for fans of The Water Dancer and the Legacy of Orïsha series—the Yoruba deity of the sea, Yemaya, is brought to vivid life as she discovers the power of Black resilience, love, and feminine strength in antebellum America. Shallow Waters imagines Yemaya, an Orïsha—a deity in the religion of Africa’s Yoruba people—cast into mid-1800s America. We meet Yemaya as a young woman, still in the care of her mother and not yet fully aware of the spectacular power she possesses to protect herself and those she holds dear. The journey laid out in Shallow Waters sees Yemaya confront the greatest evils of this era; transcend time and place in search of Obatala, a man who sacrifices his own freedom for the chance at hers; and grow into the powerful woman she was destined to become. We travel alongside Yemaya from her native Africa and on to the “New World,” with vivid pictures of life for those left on the outskirts of power in the nascent Americas. Yemaya realizes the fighter within, travels the Underground Railroad in search of the mysterious stranger Obatala, and crosses paths with icons of our history on the road to freedom. Shallow Waters is a nourishing work of ritual storytelling from promising debut author Anita Kopacz.

Shallow Waters

ea5d2aa8-7de5-4c41-a5a7-793188ad4350-1

Ohio

This book is in excellent conditions except for a few pages that have highlights.  Please see images. #paperback #fiction #oprahsbookclub #school #africa #readforschool #historicalfiction #classics #africanliterature #crythebelovedcountry

Florida

“The greatest novel to emerge out of the tragedy of South Africa, and one of the best novels of our time.” —The New Republic “A beautiful novel…its writing is so fresh, its projection of character so immediate and full, its events so compelling, and its understanding so compassionate that to read the book is to share intimately, even to the point of catharsis, in the grave human experience.” —The New York Times An Oprah Book Club selection, Cry, the Beloved Country, was an immediate worldwide bestseller when it was published in 1948. Alan Paton’s impassioned novel about a black man’s country under white man’s law is a work of searing beauty. Cry, the Beloved Country, is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son, Absalom, set against the background of a land and a people riven by racial injustice. Remarkable for its lyricism, unforgettable for character and incident, Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man.

Cry, the Beloved Country

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#historicalfiction #Africa #Zambia #magicalrealism #scifi #fantasy #Africanliterature #hardcover 

North Carolina

On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there was once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. Here begins the epic story of a small African nation, told by a mysterious swarm-like chorus that calls itself man's greatest nemesis. The tale? A playful panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction. The moral? To err is human.

The Old Drift

f520c6ca-ed81-43b6-b156-3023f8312672-1

J. M. Coetzee

Maryland

A Novel (Penguin Ink)

A modern classic by Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee, now a major motion picture starring Robert Pattinson and Johnny Depp For decades the Magistrate has run the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement, ignoring the impending war between the barbarians and the Empire whose servant he is. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he finds himself jolted into sympathy with their victims—until their barbarous treatment of prisoners of war finally pushes him into a quixotic act of rebellion, and thus into imprisonment as an enemy of the state. Waiting for the Barbarians, J. M. Coetzee’s third novel, which won the James Tate Black Memorial Prize, is an allegory of the war between oppressor and oppressed. The Magistrate is not simply a man living through a crisis of conscience in an obscure place in remote times; his situation is that of all men living in unbearable complicity with regimes that elevate their own survival above justice and decency.

Waiting for the Barbarians

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#thingsfallapart #achebe #postcolonial #classics #AfricanLiterature #BlackLit

NoViolet Bulawayo

British edition. Clean text and dust jacked intact. Man Booker prize short listed 2022.

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Glory is an energy burst, an exhilarating joyride. It is the story of an uprising, told by a bold, vivid chorus of animal voices that helps us see our human world more clearly A long time ago, in a bountiful land not so far away, the animal denizens lived quite happily. Then the colonisers arrived. After nearly a hundred years, a bloody War of Liberation brought new hope for the animals -- along with a new leader. A charismatic horse who commanded the sun and ruled and ruled and kept on ruling. For forty years he ruled, with the help of his elite band of Chosen Ones, a scandalously violent pack of Defenders and, as he aged, his beloved and ambitious young donkey wife, Marvellous. But even the sticks and stones know there is no night ever so long it does not end with dawn. And so it did for the Old Horse, one day as he sat down to his Earl Grey tea and favourite radio programme. A new regime, a new leader. Or apparently so. And once again, the animals were full of hope . . . Glory tells the story of a country seemingly trapped in a cycle as old as time. And yet, as it unveils the myriad tricks required to uphold the illusion of absolute power, it reminds us that the glory of tyranny only lasts as long as its victims are willing to let it. History can be stopped in a moment. With the return of a long-lost daughter, a #freefairncredibleelection, a turning tide -- even a single bullet.

Save this search

Adwoa Badoe

Aluta

Krystle Zara Appiah

Rootless

Maaza Mengiste

The Shadow King

Chimeka Garricks

A Broken People's Playlist (ARC)

Okwiri Oduor

Things They Lost-ARC

Rémy Ngamije

The Eternal Audience of One

William Kamkwamba; Bryan Mealer

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

William Kamkwamba; Bryan Mealer; Anna Hymas (Illustrator)

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart

Kofi Awoonor

Until the Morning After

Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart

William Kamkwamba; Bryan Mealer

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

William Kamkwamba; Bryan Mealer; Anna Hymas (Illustrator)

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

A. Igoni Barrett

Blackass

William Kamkwamba; Bryan Mealer

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart

Anita Kopacz

Shallow Waters

William Kamkwamba; Bryan Mealer

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Alan Paton

Cry, the Beloved Country

Namwali Serpell

The Old Drift

J. M. Coetzee

Waiting for the Barbarians

Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart

NoViolet Bulawayo

Glory