Here are 100 books that Burma Boy fans have personally recommended if you like
Burma Boy.
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As a child, I was an avid reader. However, I noticed none of the characters I read about looked like me. As a Black girl growing up in London, I yearned for stories that reflected my experiences. Thankfully, by the time I was a teenager, I was able to immerse myself in books written by some amazing African American authors. There was still something missing on my reading list, though. The stories of Black people who lived where I did, especially those from the past. Fast forward to now, and as an author of historical fiction, my passion is telling, writing, and highlighting ‘forgotten’ stories.
I like how this book is both personal and factual in assessing Britain’s imperial past. I’ve always loved this author’s work, and she said some lovely things about my novel The Attic Child.
Her writing really makes you think about the subject matter and want to find out more...
From Afua Hirsch - co-presenter of Samuel L. Jackson's major BBC TV series Enslaved - the Sunday Times bestseller that reveals the uncomfortable truth about race and identity in Britain today.
You're British.
Your parents are British.
Your partner, your children and most of your friends are British.
So why do people keep asking where you're from?
We are a nation in denial about our imperial past and the racism that plagues our present. Brit(ish) is Afua Hirsch's personal and provocative exploration of how this came to be - and an urgent call for change.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
As a child, I was an avid reader. However, I noticed none of the characters I read about looked like me. As a Black girl growing up in London, I yearned for stories that reflected my experiences. Thankfully, by the time I was a teenager, I was able to immerse myself in books written by some amazing African American authors. There was still something missing on my reading list, though. The stories of Black people who lived where I did, especially those from the past. Fast forward to now, and as an author of historical fiction, my passion is telling, writing, and highlighting ‘forgotten’ stories.
This gorgeous book was one of the first mainstream stories I had seen that addressed the Black presence during World War 2.
Although it was released a good few years before my first historical fiction novel was published, reading it surely planted those early seeds for my later books. Of bringing untold Black British stories to light. To remind us all that history has been whitewashed and so many untold stories exist.
Hortense shared Gilbert's dream of leaving Jamaica and coming to England to start a better life. But when she at last joins her husband, she is shocked by London's shabbiness and horrified at the way the English live. Even Gilbert is not the man she thought he was. Queenie's neighbours do not approve of her choice of tenants, and neither would her husband, were he there. Through the stories of these people, Small Island explores a point in England's past when the country began to change.
As a child, I was an avid reader. However, I noticed none of the characters I read about looked like me. As a Black girl growing up in London, I yearned for stories that reflected my experiences. Thankfully, by the time I was a teenager, I was able to immerse myself in books written by some amazing African American authors. There was still something missing on my reading list, though. The stories of Black people who lived where I did, especially those from the past. Fast forward to now, and as an author of historical fiction, my passion is telling, writing, and highlighting ‘forgotten’ stories.
This book covers the comprehensive history of the Black presence in Britain. It had everything I needed and more when researching my own historical fiction novels. Growing up in the UK, the only part pertaining to Black history was a brief mention of the transatlantic slave trade and nothing that pointed to the Black presence in the UK.
I found this book very well-researched by the author and was fascinated by the wealth of information, some of which I did not know. It also reminded me of why I love writing historical fiction!
'[A] comprehensive and important history of black Britain . . . Written with a wonderful clarity of style and with great force and passion.' - Kwasi Kwarteng, Sunday Times
In this vital re-examination of a shared history, historian and broadcaster David Olusoga tells the rich and revealing story of the long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa and the Caribbean.
This edition, fully revised and updated, features a new chapter encompassing the Windrush scandal and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, events which put black British history at the centre of urgent national debate. Black…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
As a child, I was an avid reader. However, I noticed none of the characters I read about looked like me. As a Black girl growing up in London, I yearned for stories that reflected my experiences. Thankfully, by the time I was a teenager, I was able to immerse myself in books written by some amazing African American authors. There was still something missing on my reading list, though. The stories of Black people who lived where I did, especially those from the past. Fast forward to now, and as an author of historical fiction, my passion is telling, writing, and highlighting ‘forgotten’ stories.
Charles Ignatius Sancho, born in 1729 was the first Black man to vote in Britain. His famous painting as well as his writings have been readily available for some time now. However, what this book has done is weave these stories into a narrative that is part fact, part fiction. I like to do the same with my own novels as in ‘filling the blanks of someone’s life’. The life of a person who once lived and who once breathed.
I love that this novel includes scenes set in Georgian London. A Black man in such a historical setting is not a familiar subject of books!
My current research centers on the organizing strategies of 20th and 21st-century Black activists in the U.S. and western Europe and on the U.S. as a reference culture for European anti-racism movements, particularly in my native country, the Netherlands. I believe the recent Black Lives Matter protests in Europe are an example of the effectiveness of diasporic politics and the next phase in a much longer history of homegrown activism. Foregrounding ‘Black Europe’ as an independent field of study accordingly helps to create much needed critical knowledge about Black Europeans’ history, agency, and needs as we navigate further into the volatile twenty-first century, while simultaneously challenging the perimeters of diasporic meaning and the centrality of ‘Black America’ within.
Written in a riveting style, this book by Black British writer and photographer Johny Pitts likewise combines personal narrative with journalism and historical research. Pitts recounts his journey visiting numerous, often invisible Black urban communities across the European continent. By highlighting their lived experiences and identity formations, Pitts’ account challenges conventional understandings of ‘Black Europe’ and the ‘Black Atlantic.’ These are too often drawn from the Black British experience and its connections to the Americas, even though the majority of Europeans who identify (or are identified) as Black live on the continental mainland, speak languages other than English, and came to Europe after World War II. Memories of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade accordingly are not always central to their identities. Above all, the book uncovers the multi-layered and personal meanings of ‘Blackness,’ while underscoring the poignant ways in which those whom Pitts dubs as ‘Afropeans’ in individual European…
Winner of the Jhalak Prize Winner of the Bread & Roses Award for Radical Publishing
'A revelation' Owen Jones
'Afropean seizes the blur of contradictions that have obscured Europe's relationship with blackness and paints it into something new, confident and lyrical' Afua Hirsch
A Guardian, New Statesman and BBC History Magazine Best Book of 2019
'Afropean. Here was a space where blackness was taking part in shaping European identity ... A continent of Algerian flea markets, Surinamese shamanism, German Reggae and Moorish castles. Yes, all this was part of Europe too ... With my brown skin and my British passport…
War is a horror story, laying bare the harm that humankind is capable of. Being a stubborn historian, I set myself the task of finding humanity in the face of conflict. I am especially intrigued by first-hand accounts that leave little to the imagination, yet I am not drawn to record the distress of the individual, but rather the ability to live through a war and find peace. I am a South African historian with a PhD from Stellenbosch University. I write about individuals in war, and I am determined to give a voice to those South African servicemen who were forgotten when they came home in 1945.
South Africa was a divided country at the start of the war, with many Afrikaner nationalists showing support for the Nazi cause. As such, it should perhaps not be a surprise that many of them acted as spies for Adolf Hitler’s regime.
I found this book valuable in that it brought a little-known piece of history into the public sphere. I also love that the book does not shy away from controversial matters and confronts several myths.
The story of the intelligence war in South Africa during the Second World War is one of suspense, drama and dogged persistence. In 1939, when the Union of South Africa entered the war on Britain's side, the German government secretly contacted the political opposition, and the leadership of the anti-war movement, the Ossewabrandwag.
The Nazis' aim was to spread sedition, undermine the Allied war effort, and - given the strategic importance of the Cape of Good Hope sea route - gain naval intelligence. Soon U-boat packs were sent to operate in South African waters, to deadly effect.
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
At age thirteen, sprawled on our shag-carpeted living room floor, I watched Poltergeist’s scariest scenes reflected in the glass doors of an old-school encyclopedia case. The blur made the film less scary—and aftewards, I noticed two smaller books leaned against Volumes 15-16: Italy to Lord. Reading Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time back-to-back that night rattled me harder than seeing Carol Anne sucked into the netherworld. I woke up with my worldview rearranged, and I hope you’ll find these books every bit as pleasantly unsettling.
This year, revisiting this book drove me deep into a madness that, at its center, is rooted in empathy for “hostiles” and “enemies.”
The novel was written in 1952, and its protagonist's been conscripted into World War II, but what Private Tamura endures is the insanity of every war. Booted out of his platoon due to a lack of resources, Tamura withstands and commits atrocities including cannibalism, amid a conflict he never sought.
"Written with precise skill and beautifully controlled power. The translation by Ivan Morris is outstanding." -The New York Times
**Winner of the 1952 Yomiuri Prize**
This haunting novel explores the complete degradation and isolation of a man by war. Fires on the Plain is set on the island of Leyte in the Philippines during World War II, where the Japanese army is disintegrating under the hammer blows of the American landings. Within this broader disintegration is another, that of a single human being, Private Tamura. The war destroys each of his ties to society, one by one, until Tamura, a…
As a creative nonfiction writer, I’m interested in exploring how the environments of our early years shape us. I read many different childhood memoirs while writing my own. Many of us have stories worth telling if we dig into our memories and let our creative juices flow. But it helps to have had an antagonist. The chemical stinks and pressure to conform in my hometown provided that, allowing me to use the humorous theme of escape. Everyone has had challenges to overcome, rivals, opponents, supporters, and friends, and that is the stuff of good stories. The feedback I have received indicates that, as I hoped, my memoir strikes a chord with many.
I recommend this book because it takes the reader to a totally different world of a child growing up in the 1940s and 50s in Kenya, East Africa, during the war between the British colonials and Mau Mau freedom fighters. The author was born into a typical African compound ruled by a patriarch with four wives. He had many adventures in his attempts to escape the restrictions of his native culture. In Chapter 3 of my memoir, titled “First Dreams of Africa,” I describe how I saw shapes which looked like African animals on a hill, the other side of the chemical factory and town dump. That’s when I started to dream about going to a more verdant faraway land. Ngugi wa Thiong'o became a novelist and playwright and I became an international film and media producer, and much later a creative nonfiction writer.
In Dreams in a Time of War, Ngugi wa Thiong'o paints a mesmerising portrait of a young boy's experiences in an African nation in flux.
Beginning in the late 1930s, this moving and entertaining memoir describes Ngugi's day-to-day life as the fifth child of his father's third wife in a family that included twenty-four children born to four different mothers. Against the backdrop of World War II, which affected the lives of Africans under British colonial rule in unexpected ways, Ngugi spent his childhood as the apple of his mother's eye before attending school to slake what was then considered…
My ache for the ancient is a disease. It’s probably safe to say that I am the creator of the world’s greatest range of Egypt-based fiction by a single author. My depth of knowledge comes from a lifetime spent studying ancient Egypt and Egyptian archaeology and making numerous research trips to Egypt. I am fascinated by the mystery of ancient Egypt and its potency and relevance to today’s world. I have written numerous series and stand-alone adventures.
I feel sadness for readers who haven’t experienced the excitement of this book with its aura of the ancient sacred. Set in the darkest Africa, this Lost Civilization novel, despite its colonialist overtones, stoked a fire of passion in me for thrilling reading and writing. (Rather like the unearthly pillar of fire that She bathed inside to preserve her unworldly beauty!)
For me, the story of an immortal woman and love and death across the eons is unforgettable, as is the terrible and beautiful She herself.
She (1887), an intoxicating mix of adventure, fantasy, and romance, is an underappreciated classic of English literature. Among his most successful works, She -which was inspired by Haggard's experience living in South Africa-helped the author establish his reputation as a leading writer of his generation and an invaluable pioneer of the lost world genre of fantasy fiction. Horace Holly, a young Cambridge professor, receives an unexpected opportunity from an older colleague: in exchange for knowledge about an ancient secret, Holly must agree to become the caretaker of Vincey's son in the event of his untimely death. Cautious yet intrigued, Holly…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
My only expertise is my enthusiasm for African travel. I’ve visited twenty countries, Morocco to Madagascar, the Great Lakes to the Skeleton Coast, for (I hope) my next book. You can read about a few of my African adventures, like crossing Lake Malawi, hurrying through Namibia, sailing to St. Helena Island, and witnessing the mass wildebeest migration, in my other books. Experiencing African culture, nature and wildlife is the most fun I’ve ever had, anytime, anywhere. By all means, if you can, go!
Malawi is gorgeous, inexpensive, and way under-visited. Laurens van der Post, a Bloomsbury socialite as a young man, World War Two POW, and then apartheid critic, travels ‘by aeroplane‘ across Nyasaland (present-day Malawi) in the early 1950s. Perhaps a few who have heard of Malawi know of its sprawling lake, but how many know of its majestic peaks? Van der Post’s evocation of those highlands compares with Hemingway’s Spain in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Likewise, Venture to the Interior doesn’t have a happy ending.
Summoned to Whitehall in 1949, Laurens van der Post was told that in old British Central Africa there were two large tracts of country that London didn't really know anything about, and could he go in there on foot and take a look, please? Venture to the Interior is the account of that journey, a journey filled with adventure and discovery, flying from London across Europe and Africa, and after days in small aircraft, on foot across the mountains to the two lost worlds of central Africa.
