africa reading challenge.

I've decided to join the Africa Reading Challenge, which I first learned about from Matt Cheney.   It's  pretty straightforward: read six books this year that are either about Africa or by African authors.  Ever since I first put together the unit on African science for my survey course on science in the ancient world, I've been deeply aware of how little I know about African history, so this is a great excuse for me to read up.  (On the long list of weblog posts I keep not getting around to writing: how trying to teach a unit on the history of science in Africa changed the way I think about teaching the history of science.)

The reading list may change as the year progresses, but this is my preliminary set of six books:

• Africa, A Biography of the Continent, by John Reader
• Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Citizen and Subject, by Mamood Mamdani
• The Pygmies Were Our Compass: Bantu and Batwa in the history of West Central Africa, by Kairn Klieman.
• King Leopold's Ghost, by Adam Hochschild
• Nervous Conditions, by  Tsitsi Dangarembga

This is list is haphazard at best.  The novels were selected based on recommendations, and mostly because I didn't want to limit myself to nonfiction, although I think nonfiction is where my interests are focused.  The point of the challenge is to read broadly, and reading broadly on a topic that's already as broad as "Africa" is obviously only going to be the first step towards understanding.  But it's a start.  (It's also cheating, a little--I bought the John Reader book last week, before I'd even heard of the reading challenge.  It was my vacation reading, and I'm still working my way through it.) 

What I'd love, though, are pointers to more readings on pre-colonial history.  Are there any good histories of the pre-colonial societies along the Niger, for instance?  My teaching on this has been cobbled together from articles and references in other texts, but I'd really love a good thorough history that covers the Kingdom of Ghana, and Gao, and Kanem.  Mali in the time of Mansa Musa, or even before.  I'm sure these books must be out there, I just haven't had a lot of luck locating them so far.  (I'm hoping that the Klieman book on my list might be a start in that direction, although not quite what I'm looking for.) 

So that's the Africa Reading Challenge.  I'll be posting about the books as I read them.  If anyone else wants to join in, just sign up at the original post.   (And if you don't have any idea where to start finding books for your list, there are suggestions both on that page and on Matt Cheney's post.) 

Comments

[chance]

If you have never read Cry, the Beloved Country, I can't recommend it enough. The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency is a lot of fun. In my TBR pile is Things Fall Apart. In popular culture I like the writings of Elizabeth Wein and Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu.

[Matt Cheney]

Hooray! Glad you're joining in! Nervous Conditions is a favorite of mine, so I can't wait to see what you make of it. I hadn't heard of the Klieman book, but am now fascinated and have to add it to my ever-growing and all-consuming Must Locate This Book list...

[Jill Cortis]

I picked up The Royal Kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay, Life in Medieval Africa by Fredrick McKissack as well as Tropical gangsters by Robert Klitgaard.
Happy to find this blog. My daughter is going to studey in jnior year in Ghana.

[dave]

One of the things I really enjoy about your list is that you're delving into lots of non-fiction. I'm also hoping to read citizen & subject; i'll be interested to compare opinions.

welcome to the challenge!

[Benjamin Rosenbaum]

In high school I read, and loved, "Heart of the Ngoni", a book of sort of folkloric/semi-legendary history from seventeenth century Segu, which I think is now Mali. It's sort of like Arthurian chivalric romance in tone, a bunch of bad-ass warrior dudes who are all like "to show how butch I am I demand that you shoot at me three times with your musket before I even draw!" and "alas, the fortune teller has told me I am fated to die!"

I haven't re-read it since back then, so it may not hold up, but it's semi-historical, pre-colonial, and along the Niger, and it was a lot of fun at the time.

[Susan Marie Groppi]

Ben-- The library here has that one! I may swap it in for something else on the list, we'll see. It sounds fun.