The Memory of Love
Aminatta Forna (2010)
Forna’s memoir, The Devil That Danced on the Water, was a daughter’s search for the truth of a murdered father’s last days, and for a country – Sierra Leone – lost to civil war. In this, her second novel, she takes the reader to Freetown in peacetime – in 1969 and the present day. An English psychologist, Adrian Lockheart, hears the confessions of a dying man, Elias Cole. What unfolds is an unforgettable love story, a tale of complicity, betrayal and trauma that perhaps does more to tell us about this bitter conflict – and to make that telling stick – than any work of non-fiction can
Lyrics Alley
Leila Aboulela (2010)
Set in mid-50s, pre-independence Sudan, Aboulela’s third novel takes us on a journey to Egypt and postwar Britain as we follow the life of Nur, the cosmopolitan son of a powerful businessman, who finds his dreams dashed following an accident. This is also the story of the conflict between Nur’s traditional mother and the city-bred Egyptian co-wife whose arrival threatens the stability of the family. Though set mostly in the world of the northern Sudanese, Aboulela’s gentle, poetic prose is a perfect counterpoint to the time of turmoil and upheaval she chronicles
The Hairdresser of Harare
Tendai Huchu (2010)
This glorious book defies classification with its astute sociopolitical commentary nestling inside the appealing, often comic story of a young woman who will not accept defeat. With a light touch and real skill, Huchu takes us through the life-sapping economic realities of contemporary Harare via the story of Vimbai, the hairdresser, as she struggles to make a home for herself and her young son. She’s lost a beloved brother to the diaspora and when a new (male) stylist joins the salon, it looks as if she will soon lose her best clients, maybe even her job
Looking for Transwonderland
Noo Saro-Wiwa (2012)
With this memoir, Noo Saro-Wiwa, daughter of the murdered environmental and political activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, establishes herself as a pioneer in contemporary travel writing – Africa as seen by Africans. Travelling from the mayhem of Lagos across Nigeria, she brings family history and the sometimes conflicted eye of an African raised away from the motherland to look at this vast, fascinating land. Only one who calls the country home could write such an honest account of contemporary Nigeria
Beneath the Lion’s Gaze
Maaza Mengiste (2010)
Set in the years of the red terror (the period of upheaval following the violent communist revolution in Ethiopia) in the 1970s, Mengiste’s novel follows the lives of two brothers and their father: Dawit, the student revolutionary, his elder brother, Yonas, who seeks solace in tradition and prayer, and their father, Hailu, a surgeon who is summoned to save the life of a young woman who has been horrifically tortured by the secret police. His task is to heal her just enough to send her back to prison. The choices he makes will change the course of the family’s life
