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Modern African Writing

Cover of 'Dog Eat Dog'

Dog Eat Dog
A Novel
By Niq Mhlongo

Dog Eat Dog is a remarkable record of being young in a nation undergoing tremendous turmoil, and provides a glimpse into South Africa’s pivotal kwaito (South African hip-hop) generation and life in Soweto. Set in 1994, just as South Africa is making its postapartheid transition, Dog Eat Dog captures the hopes—and crushing disappointments—that characterize such moments in a nation’s history.Raucous

Fiction · Literary Collections | African · African Literature

Cover of 'The Conscript'

The Conscript
A Novel of Libya’s Anticolonial War
By Gebreyesus Hailu
· Translation by Ghirmai Negash
· Introduction by Laura Chrisman

Eloquent and thought-provoking, this classic novel by the Eritrean novelist Gebreyesus Hailu, written in Tigrinya in 1927 and published in 1950, is one of the earliest novels written in an African language and will have a major impact on the reception and critical appraisal of African literature.

Fiction · Literary Collections | African · Eritrea · Libya · African Literature

Cover of 'On Black Sisters Street'

On Black Sisters Street
A Novel
By Chika Unigwe

On Black Sisters Street tells the haunting story of four very different women who have left their African homeland for the riches of Europe—and who are thrown together by bad luck and big dreams into a sisterhood that will change their lives. Each night, Sisi, Ama, Efe, and Joyce stand in the windows of Antwerp’s red-light district, promising to make men’s desires come true—if only for half an hour.

Fiction · Literary Collections | African · African Literature

Cover of 'After Tears'

After Tears
By Niq Mhlongo

Bafana Kuzwayo is a young man with a weight on his shoulders. After flunking his law studies at the University of Cape Town, he returns home to Soweto, where he must decide how to break the news to his family. But before he can confess, he is greeted as a hero by family and friends. His uncle calls him “Advo,” short for Advocate, and his mother wastes no time recruiting him to solve their legal problems.

Fiction · Literary Collections | African · South Africa · African Literature

Cover of 'Welcome to Our Hillbrow'

Welcome to Our Hillbrow
A Novel of Postapartheid South Africa
By Phaswane Mpe

Welcome to Our Hillbrow is an exhilarating and disturbingride through the chaotic and hyper-real zone of Hillbrow—microcosm of all that is contradictory, alluring, and painful in the postapartheid South African psyche.

Fiction · Literary Collections | African · African Literature

Cover of 'From Sleep Unbound'

From Sleep Unbound
By Andrée Chedid

From Sleep Unbound portrays the life of Samya, an Egyptian woman who is taken at age 15 from her Catholic boarding school and forced into a loveless and humiliating marriage. Eventually sundered from every human attachment, Samya lapses into despair and despondence, and finally an emotionally caused paralysis. But when she shakes off the torpor of sleep, the sleep of avoidance, she awakens to action with the explosive energy of one who has been reborn.

Fiction · Women Authors · Literary Collections | African · African Literature