By Paula Willie-Okafor and Orji Victor Ebubechukwu
The notable books of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction by African writers published in 2024, selected by the staff of Open Country Mag.
Editors’ Note: Open Country Mag may earn a commission if you bought the books via the Amazon affiliate hyperlinks.
POETRY
Besaydoo, Yalie Saweda Kamara
Milkweed Editions | January 2024
With sharp detail and like a griot, the Sierra Leonean poet weaves the complexities of identity, culture, and the Krio, English, and French languages into a rich tapestry of myth, memory, and experience — a love song to home. Won the Jake Adam York Prize.
Origins of the Syma Species, Tares Oburumu
University of Nebraska Press | March 2024
Oburumu — profiled in this magazine — offers a personal exploration of his roots in Syma, a neglected oil-producing region of Nigeria, where he grew up with a single mother and now lives as a single parent himself.
Daughter Wound, Nkateko Masinga
Hazel Press | April 2024
A young, Black, South African woman’s negotiation of intimate relationships: sexual, familial, and political.
No Gods Live Here, Conceição Lima
Phoneme Media | April 2024
The first book-length collection by a woman from São Tomé to appear in English — and winner of the 2021 Words Without Borders-Academy of American Poets Poems in Translation Contest — Lima’s poetry unites past and present, taking on São Tomé and Príncipe’s history of slavery, colonialism, and independence, and charging the future with hope.
History and Its True Colors, Tanure Ojaide
Spears Books | May 2024
Through nine unique and interrelated, the veteran poet reflects on history from the multiple positionalities of creativity and self, personal relations, society, nationality, race, humanity, and life.
Adam, Gboyega Odubanjo
Faber & Faber | June 2024
Inspired by the 2001 discovery of a young Black boy’s remains in the River Thames in London, these poems combine the Genesis myth and Yoruba culture to “create” Adam, probing the implications of disappeared Black people. It foreshadowed the poet’s own demise.
Nineteen Ways of Looking at Awono, Edited by Georgina Collins
Bakwa Books | August 2024
A translation anthology centered around Jean-Claude Awono’s poem “Le Poème de Yambacongo,” with 19 distinct translations from around the world, including Nigerian Pidgin, Jamaican Creole, and Shetlandic.
Autobiomythography Of, Ayokunle Falomo
Alice James Books | September 2024
An intimate look at the fixed notion of self, family, and Nigerian nationhood, sifting through mythologies, and utilizing autobiography, biography, history, and geography, to examine the residue of colonization.
Terminal Maladies, Okwudili Nebeolisa
Autumn House Press | September 2024
Winner of the 2023 CAAPP Book Prize from the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for African American Poetry and Poetics and Autumn House Press, Nebeolisa’s autobiographical poems take us into the emotional journey he and his mother shared as she battled cancer, and his struggles with guilt and distance on starting a new life in the United States.
Leaked Footages, Abu Bakr Sadiq
University of Nebraska Press | November 2024
Poems that tackle death, disappearance, grief, and memory in Northern Nigeria, infused with Afrofuturism and experimental techniques, conveying the devastation of terrorism and war on survivors.
Monster, Dzifa Benson
Bloodaxe Books | December 2024
A bold take on the Black female body as a site of oppression and resistance, with a focus on the story of Sarah Baartman, the Khoikhoi woman who was displayed in 19th-century European freak shows. Benson draws parallels between Baartman’s experience and her own life as a Black woman born in London and raised in Ghana.
Kumi, Edited by Chris Abani and Kwame Dawes
Akashic Books | December 2024
African Poetry Book Fund’s new limited-edition box set features work by nine poets: Nurain Oládèjì, Sarpong Osei Asamoah, Claudia Owusu, Nome Emeka Patrick, Qhali, Adams Adeosun, Connor Cogill, Feranmi Ariyo, and Dare Tunmise.
The Mystic of Small Dreams, Romeo Oriogun
Masobe Books | December 2024
A chronicle of migrants navigating internal and external borders, with the poet himself embodying the perpetual migrant, traversing nations in Africa, Europe, and America.
NON-FICTION
Love Offers No Safety, Olumide F. Makanjuola and Jude Dibia
Cassava Republic | February 2024
Twenty-five first-person narratives of the diverse experiences of queer Nigerian men, cutting across age, class, and ethnicity, and marked by contradictions, anger, resilience, and hope.
The Near North, Ivan Vladislavic
Picador Africa | February 2024
From small domestic dramas to louder public spectacles, we follow the writer through the streets of Johannesburg — a search for meaning both intimate and expansive in its scope.
An African History of Africa, Zeinab Badawi
WH Allen | April 2024
Through interviews with historians, anthropologists, and local storytellers from over 30 African countries, Badawi assembles a guide through continental history, from ancient civilizations to independence.
My Mother, My Teacher, Bahia Mahmud Awah
Modern Language Association of America | May 2024
In prose and poetry in Hassaniya, the traditional Saharawi language, Awah recounts his family’s separation and displacement in the aftermath of Western Sahara’s failed decolonization, his mother’s love, and the importance of language in preserving cultural legacy.
The World Was in Our Hands, Edited by Chitra Nagarajan
Cassava Republic | June 2024
First-hand accounts from people living through the Boko Haram conflict — abducted girls, soldiers, community leaders, and fishermen — with untold insight into the realities of war and its impact on individuals and communities.
An Imperfect Storm, Chikwe Ihekweazu and Vivianne Ihekweazu
Masobe Books | August 2024
A personal account of the COVID-19 pandemic, as seen by infectious disease epidemiologist Chikwe Ihekweazu, who, as Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), played a crucial role in the country’s response.
Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of Books That Saved Me, Glory Edim
Ballantine Books | October 2024
The Well-Read Black Girl book club founder invites us into how literature shaped her life and identity growing up in America as the daughter of Nigerian immigrant parents. A paen to Black writers, from Nikki Giovanni and Maya Angelou to Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde.
Afro-Centered Futurisms in Our Speculative Fiction, Edited by Eugen Bacon, Toyin Falola, and Abimbola Adelakun
Bloomsbury Publishing | November 2024
Creative-critical essays that explore Afrofuturism and black speculative fiction, featuring contributions by Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga, Cheryl S. Ntumy, Dilman Dila, Eugen Bacon, Nerine Dorman, Nuzo Onoh, Shingai Njeri Kagunda, Stephen Embleton, Suyi Okungbowa, Tobi Ogundiran, and Xan van Rooyen.
Èṣù at the Library, Kola Tubosun
Masobe Books | December 2024
Taking in the uncertainty of the pandemic, Tubosun’s travelogue turns encounters with foreigners, strangers, food, and culture into a contemplation of language and accents, places and spaces, and the necessity of human connection. An exploration of identity and memory.
FICTION
The Seers, Sulaiman Addonia
Prototype Publishing | January 2024
Flitting between the past and the present, taking in colonial trauma and the intricacies of the UK asylum system, we follow Hannah, an Eritrean refugee in London whose mother’s diary reveals a sordid sexual tale during World War II.
The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, Shubnum Khan
Pengiun Book | January 2024
A once-grand estate off the South African coast is now a ruined boardinghouse for misfits seeking solitude. For Sana, it is a place of curiosity, with a dark history.
Pharmakon, Teju Cole
Mack Books | February 2024
Cole — profiled in this magazine — pairs enigmatic photographs taken around the world with twelve interspersing short stories that take on disorder, displacement, and the post-apocalyptic. A unique photo book emerges, rife with the acclaimed author’s signature precision and unconventionality.
Bright Red Fruit, Safia Elhillo
Make Me A World, February 2024
Elhillo’s coming-of-age novel-in-verse follows Samira, a teen poet who is misunderstood by her mother and aunties. When her summer vacation is ruined by a rumor that has her grounded and unable to leave the house, she finds solace in a poetry forum where she meets Horace, a charming, older poet.
Convergence Problems, Wole Talabi
DAW | February 2024
A mechanic submits to a radical procedure, a woman fights to save her brother on Mars, another prepares to transfer her consciousness into an artificial body, and an engineer in Nairobi navigates a malfunctioning AI art system: these 16 stories explore the intersection of technology, belief, and the search for meaning in an ever-evolving world.
The Villain’s Dance, Fiston Mwanza Mujila
Deep Vellum Publishing | March 2024
Set in late 1990s Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), amid the growing tension of Mobutu Sese Seko’s crumbling dictatorship and a civil war, the novel follows a cast of characters: Sanza, a homeless child, joins a group of street kids led by the cunning Ngungi and meets a mysterious man, who may offer an escape. In Angola, Molakisi joins thousands of Zairians drawn by the country’s diamond mines, while Austrian writer Franz pens the memoirs of a diviner.
We Were Girls Once, Aiwanose Odafen
Scribner UK | April 2024
Connected by a bond that spans generations, three young women chart a capricious 1990s Nigeria. Amid the political unrest, they become estranged after a terrible incident destroys their friendship. Ego becomes a successful but lonely lawyer in London, Zina pursues acting at the cost of her family, and doctor Eriife transforms into a politician’s trophy wife. Odafen was profiled in this magazine.
A Kind of Madness, Uche Okonkwo
TinHouse | April 2024
In 10 stories, Okonkwo’s debut collection burrows into the complex relationships between ordinary people, from a teenage girl grappling with her unstable, wealthy friend to a mother and daughter facing conflict with their community over a failed marriage proposal, to a daughter coping with her mother’s mental illness.
Someone Birthed Them Broken, Diaka Ama Asantewa
Amistad | April 2024
The characters navigate love, passion, and heartache in these interconnected stories set in Ghana. A man struggles to keep his family’s cocoa business afloat after his father’s unexpected passing, his son deals with infidelity, and a young woman gets entangled with her professor. Taken together, they form a tale of a nation, as seen by its young.
Ghostroots, Pemi Aguda
Masobe | May 2024
The 12 stories in Aguda’s debut collection are set in a Lagos where the supernatural looms. Everyday life is imbued with the mystical, from a mother’s strange struggle with breastfeeding to a mysterious disease pervading homes on a street, to masquerades following a schoolboy home.
Crooked Seeds, Karen Jennings
Hogarth | April 2024
In 2028 Cape Town, during a drought, Deidre’s family home becomes the site of a criminal investigation, and she faces unsettling questions about her brother’s alleged involvement in pro-apartheid terrorism. Struggling with the remnants of a broken family, she seeks a way forward.
Bald Dandelions with Their Wishes Blown Clean Off, Edited by Nadifa Mohamed
Huza Press | May 2024
Ten writers across East Africa take on language, queerness, and the conflict between tradition and progress, reimagining familiar themes in ways that surmount physical borders to emphasize a shared African experience.
The Silence of the Choir, Sarr Mohamed Mbougar
Europa Editions | May 2024
In the Prix Goncourt winner‘s novel, the arrival of 72 refugees in a small Sicilian town disrupts the lives of its people. Tagged the ragazzi, they are taken in by the Santa Marta Association. In the town, they meet a curious cast of characters, including a strange vicar, a woman bent on fighting for their asylum, a man opposed to it, an older ragazzo-turned-interpreter, and a reclusive poet.
Like Water Like Sea, Olumide Popoola
Cassava Republic | May 2024
A decade after her sister’s tragic suicide, Nia — a queer, bi/pansexual naturopath living in London — sees her entire world pivot. Like her sister, her mother struggles with bipolar disorder, a reality that colors Nia’s life. Popoola’s moving second novel focuses on three key moments in her life.
African Ghost Short Stories, Chinelo Onwualu
Flame Tree Collections | May 2024
An edition of the Flame Tree Gothic fantasy series that brings together new and traditional African supernatural stories, blending ancient folklore with modern tales in a vibrant exploration of African horror.
The Liquid Eye of a Moon, Uchenna Awoke
Catapult | June 2024
When his father is wrongfully passed over for the position of village head, 15-year old Dimpka’s hopes for a better life for his family are dashed. In a bid to shape his own destiny, he embarks on a journey that will take him to Lagos and Awka and back home to his small village, learning hard and vital truths.
The Road to the Country, Chigozie Obioma
Hogarth | June 2024
Obioma melds myth and realism in a story of brotherhood and atonement set in late 1960s Nigeria, during the Biafran War. Burdened by guilt and seeking redemption, Kunle wades into turmoil on a search for his missing brother when the war upends the country. While his mission lands him in the Biafran army, looming are the prophecies of a local seer, who foretells that Kunle is an abami eda — one who will die and return to life.
The Incredible Dreams of Garba Dakaskus, Umar Abubakar Sidi
Masobe Book | June 2024
Novelist-cum-soldier Sidi’s ambitious novel centers a mysterious book that may hold the secrets of the alphabet and reveal truths about existence. Drawing inspiration from works like One Thousand and One Nights and The Library of Babel, the book’s narrator embarks on a journey to uncover existential knowledge, encountering numerous characters and stories as they seek the meaning of life.
Blessings, Chukwuebuka Ibeh
Doubleday | June 2024
When his father catches him in an intimate moment with another boy, teenager Obiefuna is sent away to a strict boarding school. Amid the violence, he comes to terms with himself while hiding his identity. Meanwhile, his mother Uzoamaka grapples with her son’s absence and the true reason for his exile.
These Letters End in Tears, Musih Tedji Xaviere
Masobe Books | June 2024
Two girls of different religions fall in love in anti-gay Cameroon. When Bessem, a Christian, and Fatima, a Muslim, are discovered, the latter mysteriously disappears. Thirteen years later, Bessem, now a university professor, is on a quest to find her.
Sand Roses, Hamza Khoudri
Masobe Books | June 2024
Two sisters, Fahima and Salima, arrive in Bousaada, colonial Algeria, in 1931, with dreams of becoming dancers, but their lives are forever changed when they kill a French soldier in self-defense. They must rely on their cunning to navigate a treacherous world of violence and deception.
Only Big Bumbum Matters Tomorrow, Damilare Kuku
HarperVia | July 2024
When 20-year-old graduate Temi declares her intention to surgically enlarge her backside, move to Lagos, and find a man who will love her, the women in her family begin to reveal long-buried secrets in a bid to change her mind, including the mystery of her sister’s disappearance five years earlier.
Loss Is an Aftertaste of Memories, Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera
Mmuta Books | July 2024
In Chukwudera’s debut, a young man reflects on his childhood and the complexities of adolescence. A delve through memory, family, friendship, religion, and the transience of perspective shaped by time.
Someone Like Us, Dinaw Mengestu
Knopf | July 2024
The son of Ethiopian immigrants, Mamush abandons a burgeoning journalism career and moves to Paris, where he meets and marries Hannah, a photographer. Five years later, their relationship is failing. When he leaves his wife and their two-year old child for his Ethiopian immigrant community in Washington, DC, he arrives to the death of a childhood father-figure, Samuel, whose charming exterior always concealed darker truths.
Yoruba Boy Running, Biyi Bandele
Hamish Hamilton | July 2024
The late Bandele’s posthumous historical novel charts the remarkable journey of Samuel Ajayi Crowther. At thirteen, Àjàyí is captured by Malian slave traders, his peaceful life in Osogun shattered. After enduring slavery and converting to Christianity, he is christened a missionary and liberator, dedicated to ending the brutal slave trade that tore his family apart.
The Road to the Salt Sea, Samuel Kolawole
HarperCollins | July 2024
The story of Able God, a Nigerian hotel worker with humble aspirations, whose life is shattered when he becomes entangled with a sex worker and a powerful hotel guest, forcing him to flee the country — and join a group of migrants traveling through the desert for Europe.
Dutton | August 2024
In this follow-up to her 2020 novel The Girl with the Louding Voice, an eavesdropped conversation between Tia’s dying mother and aunt sets her on a mission to uncover a long-buried secret. Meanwhile, 14-year-old Adunni has fled her village to Lagos, to chase her dreams of an education, and finds a haven in Tia’s home. An incident follows that has Tia torn between protecting Adunni and learning the truth she seeks.
Born in a House of Glass, Chinenye Emezie
Dundurn Press | August 2024
Udonwa’s father, Reverend Leonard Ilechukwu, is a complex and troubled figure who is both loving and violent. When her sister removes her from the family compound, a dark picture emerges that shakes her to her core.
The Creation of Half-Broken People, Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu
Pan Macmillan | September 2024
Inspired by classic Gothic and feminist literature, and the work of Victorian adventurer H. Rider Haggard, Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu’s African gothic novel treats colonialism, patriarchy, and womanhood in an exploration of a continent’s fraught past. Told by a nameless narrator, it reimagines stories of the downtrodden in the face of a ruthless empire.
A Mouth Full of Salt, Reem Gafar
Saqi Books | September 2024
In a North Sudanese farming village, a series of unsettling events spark rumors of a sorceress by the mountains, and 16-year-old Fatima dreams of escaping to Khartoum. Three decades earlier, a single mother navigating a patriarchal society is forced to leave the capital as a civil war escalates. The novel explores the fates of women in a country on the verge of great change.
Our Beautiful Darkness, Ondjaki
Unruly/Enchanted Lion | September 2024
A graphic YA novella that follows two teenagers who strike an intimate connection during a blackout. Illustrated by António Jorge Gonçalves and set amid Angola’s 1990s civil war, the book is an exploration of first love, intertwining the country’s past with a boy’s family history.
Egypt + 100, Ahmed Naji
Comma Press | September 2024
A collection of stories by 12 contemporary Egyptian authors that imagines what the country might look like in the year 2111, a century after the failed Tahrir Square Revolution. Ranging from SF noir and supernatural horror to political farce, the stories use the future as a canvas to process the traumas of Egypt’s recent past and the erosion of civil liberties. Contributors are Ahmed Fakharany, Azza Sultan, Belal Fadl , Camellia Hussein , Michel Hanna, Mansoura Ez Eldin, Nora Nagi, Heba Khamis, Mohamed Kheir, Ahmed Wael, Yasmine El Rashidi, and Naji.
Obligations to the Wounded, Mubanga Kalimamukwento
University of Pittsburgh Press | October 2024
Kalimamukwento’s second book and first story collection focuses on Zambian women, home and abroad, exploring familial expectations, loss, race, sexual discovery, identity and immigration, and a grueling AIDS epidemic — the struggles, triumphs, and desires of women asserting their fates.
Innie Shadows, Olivia M. Coetzee
Spiderline | October 2024
A gruesome discovery in a field in Shadow Heights, a troubled neighborhood in Cape Town, sets off a chain of events, as Detective Ley investigates the case and searches for her missing friend Carl, who is linked to the local drug kingpin. It is the first novel to be translated from Kaaps, a dialect of Afrikaans that only recently became a written vernacular.
A Man with No Title, Xavier Le Clerc, Translated by William Rodarmor
Saqi Books | October 2024
Haunted by memories of the Algerian war, Mohand-Said Ait-Taleb withdraws from his family in France, leaving his son Xavier to piece together the story of his life through the writings of Albert Camus.
Who Will Bury You?, Chido Muchemwa
Astoria | October 2024
A mother and daughter navigating the daughter’s sexuality, two sisters grappling with their grandmother’s death, a journalist tracks a mermaid abduction mystery: the Zimbabweans in these 12 stories, partly set in Canada, contend with the complexities of home and belonging.
Ground, Jadelin Gangbo
Jacaranda Books | November 2024
A fire in a big house in the Italian countryside sets the stage for a story of displacement and family, as seven children are left to fend for themselves while their parents are away in Africa, where other siblings have a different life. Now in his forties, one of the children, Redesof, tracks his past and present, from his childhood migration from Congo to Italy, to his life as an acupuncturist in post-Brexit London.
Only Stars Know the Meaning of Space, Rémy Ngamije
Simon & Schuster | December 2024
Billed as a “literary mixtape,” the Namibian author and Doek! editor’s stories include one about a young writer making his way in a hard world, presented as the book’s A-side, and more about loss, familial history, and heartache, in its B-side. ♦
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More Lists and Series from Open Country Mag
— The Notable Books of the Year: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021
— Our Top Stories of the Year: 2024, 2023
— The Rovingheights x Open Country Mag Bestseller List: 2023, 2022