86 Books Like Sunburst

Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí’s was the first book I encountered when I started to critically engage with Western feminist scholarship as a Master's student in the UK.

This book made a major intervention by challenging theories of gender in Western social sciences and questioning their relevance to African societies. I especially loved the book because Oyěwùmí offered a detailed presentation of gender realities in the Oyo-Yorùbá society of Nigeria that paid attention to human relations holistically and situationally and did not assume gender inequality on the basis of female/male bodies.

A must-read analysis for anyone working to decolonize gender theory.

The idea to adapt Conrad’s Heart of Darkness came from my teaching of modern world history every semester. Later in that course, I would have students read Achebe’s novel as a foil or answer to Heart of Darkness. The Congolese in Heart are barely people: they have no names, and they are only really described by parts of their bodies.

This book presents the West African world–the communities, the customs, the emotions, the families–that colonialism destroys. While it is easy to be swept away by the story’s momentum in the last two dozen pages, take some time early in the novel to enjoy the world that Achebe lovingly paints. I think it is among the most human expressions of fiction you can read.  

Do you want to feel the exuberance and magic of childhood again? Then read and enjoy this beautiful book, which will take you on a journey through a Nigerian night market with all of its delightful sights, sounds, tastes, and smells.

It’s an exhilarating glimpse at a vibrant way of life halfway across the globe. Plus, since I’m a night owl and my own book takes place entirely at night, I’m partial to stories about little-known slices of life that happen when most people are asleep.

I think Adunni might be one of my favorite heroines of all time. She’s so brave, loveable, and vulnerable. This book opened my eyes to what it’s like to live in some of the most difficult conditions imaginable, but it made me so hopeful, too. Adunni’s rebel spirit propelled me through the pages.

In a way, this book made me feel ten years old again–when I was reading, it was as though nothing beyond the book existed. Every time Adunni triumphed, I wanted to stand up and cheer. Most of all, it made me feel I could do my bit to change the world. I know that there are real children facing forced marriage, like Adunni. This book made me want to raise my voice and help.

All right, so a Nobel laureate doesn’t need any encomiums from me, but what the hell. Soyinka’s first book in nearly half a century is revealing, enlightening, satirical, gleeful and just plain damn funny, while telling you more about the chaotic politics and sociology of his native Nigeria than you ever thought possible, a wonderful window into Africa’s most populous country.

This is classic literary journalism from a reporter who, at the time, had no business writing this beautifully at such a young age. It’s a great example of how ordinary lives caught up in conflict when told with enough flair and sensitivity, contain sufficient drama and universal appeal to rival any fictionalized character.

Okeowo’s geographic sweep is impressive, as she brings us to Uganda, Mauritania, Somalia, and Nigeria, weaving a unifying narrative of ordinary people fighting extremism. 

The transatlantic slave trade was, historically, the most organized and sophisticated system of dependence, but it was not the only form of enslavement. In Africa, prior to it, and even proceeding it, were systems of bondage. This is the heart of Emecheta’s novel: set in the early 20th century, it tells the story of a young Igbo woman who loses her parents and is then sold into slavery. As characteristic of Emecheta, it is beautifully written and developed in characterization. Specifically, what I love about this novel is its perspective on the African female in situations that are physical, psychological, and cultural enslavement. 

This is the best account I know of the double bind that artists subjected to settler forms of colonialism have had to endure. Taking Nigerian modern art as his case study, this eminent Africanist art historian shows how, on the one hand, colonial officials attempted to abolish the indigenous artistic heritage as "savage," or "primitive," while simultaneously blocking African artists from a European art education. To become modern required a negotiation between these dual limitations and ended up producing something very different from Western modernism.

War Girls is YA sci-fi that takes place in war-torn Nigeria at the end of the 22nd century.

The world as we know it has ended because of runaway climate change and nuclear disaster, and two sisters, Onyii and Ify, live together in a makeshift colony of traumatized former child soldiers. After a devastating raid on their camp, the sisters are separated—each believing the other was killed—only to find themselves on opposing sides of the conflict.

This is a book about the world-shattering horrors of war, but it’s also about colonial violence, about sisterhood and solidarity, and about small moments that forever shape how the protagonists view each other and themselves. It’s also a complex, character-driven story that tenaciously searches for hope in ruins and aftermaths.

This is far more than a colonial era whodunit, a recounting of yet another colonial atrocity – though it is that in spades.  Yes, in 1897 the British occupation army reacted to the killing of a a few colonial officials by razing an empire to the ground, careless of its causes and its effects. So much, so commonplace. But what an empire! The Benin artworks the army looted, subsequently dispersed to museums around the globe, were and still are a revelation to those whose notions of African art were to that point limited to masks and fetishes. A mere catalogue of the pieces would be enough to explain why Picasso, among other artists, was captivated by the art of Africa, but Philips has done more than that – he puts the looted artifacts into their context and into their culture. There is nothing didactic or preachy about this book, but… show more.