Best Books from Nigeria
Nigeria is the most productive literary nation in Africa, home to the continent's most celebrated writer — Chinua Achebe, whose Things Fall Apart remains the founding text of African literature in English — and to two Nobel laureates in literature, Wole Soyinka and, prospectively, the many-talented Ben Okri. The Nigerian tradition encompasses Achebe's realist critique of colonialism, Soyinka's theatrical and poetic complexity, Buchi Emecheta's feminist social fiction, and the formal audacity of Ben Okri's mythic novels. Contemporary Nigerian writers — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Teju Cole, NoViolet Bulawayo — are among the most internationally prominent of their generation.
Top 10 from Nigeria
Half of a Yellow Sun
Two sisters experience the Biafran War of the 1960s from different vantage points—one connected to an Igbo intellectual, the other a servant—in Adichie's Women's Prize-winning novel. A sweeping, deeply humane account of a neglected African war that also explores love, loyalty, and the violence of nation-making.
The Famished Road
Azaro, a spirit child caught between the world of the living and the world of the dead, grows up in a poverty-stricken Nigerian neighbourhood during the country's post-independence struggles. Okri's Booker Prize-winning novel draws on Yoruba mythology and Nigerian oral tradition to create a luminous work of magical realism. It established Okri as one of Africa's most important literary voices.
The Interpreters
The Interpreters is a complex and richly layered novel by Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka. It explores the lives of a group of intellectuals in post-colonial Nigeria as they navigate the challenges of a rapidly changing society. The novel is noted for its intricate narrative structure and its incisive commentary on the political and social issues of the time.
Things Fall Apart
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958) is a notable work of classic literature from Nigeria.
Americanah
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1969) is a notable work of romance from Nigeria.
Contemporary African Short Stories
Contemporary African Short Stories by Chinua Achebe (1992) is a notable work of short stories from Nigeria.
There Was a Country
Achebe's long-delayed memoir about the Biafran War—in which he was a passionate advocate for Biafra—is both a personal account and a meditation on Nigeria's history and the role of art in times of crisis.
Purple Hibiscus
Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her brother Jaja live under the suffocating control of their devout Catholic father in postcolonial Nigeria, finding liberation only in their visits to their liberated aunt's house. Adichie's debut is a haunting, beautifully written coming-of-age story.
Americanah
Ifemelu and Obinze, high school sweethearts in Lagos, are separated by emigration—she to the United States, he to Britain—and must negotiate race and identity before finding their way back to each other. Adichie's novel is a scalpel-precise examination of race, identity, and what Africa looks like from outside.
Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions
Published in 2017, Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a compelling biographical work that brings its subject vividly to life.
