A trip to another country can often be enhanced by reading a book set in your country of travelling. Whether it is a fiction or non-fiction book, set in the past or present day, will open your mind and sensors to making your adventure experience more memorable and enlightening. Here are my top 10 African books to read that I must say, have been passed through our overland trucks (from our cool book swap libraries) and have been read by thousands of travellers that have travelled on our Acacia routes. Happy travelling and reading!
1) Long walk to freedom – Author: Nelson Mandela
If you have only 1 book to read on your African travels, this book is truly amazing! Nelson Mandela the hero, the revolutionary, the man who changed Africa, the larger than life inspiring figure. The only thing more incredible than his autobiography is that when reading anything else about Africa, Mandela remains unblemished. A truly inspiration masterpiece and his road to freedom!
2) Don’t let go of the dogs tonight – Author: Alexandra Fuller
This book is a fascinating memoir of a girl growing up in a white farming family during the Rhodesian war in the 1970’s. Alexandra Fuller’s deep love of Africa comes in leaps and bounds through despite the violence she encountered in her young life. A great read based on the complexities of post-colonial Africa.
3) Power of one – Author: Bryce Courtenay
This moving coming-of-age novel tells the story of an Anglo-African boy living in South Africa during World War II, are as bleak and violent as anything written for young people. Five-year-old Peekay is the only English-speaking boy in a harsh Afrikaans-language boarding school. Although he endures many losses, he grows through his experiences. His goal is to become a boxer, and the story shows how hard work can lead to success. Peekay forges loving relationships with adults, most notably Doc, a German professor. When Doc is detained as an enemy alien, Peekay life becomes intertwined with the local prison. It is there that he learns to box and becomes a secret ally of the black prisoners.
4) Dark Star safaris – Author: Paul Theroux
This inspiring novel is a written account of a trip taken by author Paul Theroux ‘Overland from Cairo to Cape Town’ via trains, planes, buses, mokoro’s (dugout canoes) cars, and armed convoy. Paul Theroux knows Africa well. Forty years ago, he worked as a teacher in Malawi. In 2003 he decided to return to Africa in order to discover how the continent had changed. He traveled overland from Cairo to Cape Town making use only of public transport. Theroux has a unique style that can become a bit grating, but the book is nevertheless very insightful. Definitely one of the best travel books available on Africa.
5) Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa – Author: Peter Godwin
Peter Godwin tells the story of his experiences growing up in a liberal white family in the 1960s in white Rhodesia, as he transforms from a privileged boy to reluctant soldier to investigative journalist. In the background the country takes a violent turn as it becomes Zimbabwe.
6) Ladies detective agency – Author: Alexander McCall Smith
The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is the first novel in a series of seven about Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s first lady detective. An Agatha Christie type novel set at an African pace it’ll put a smile on your face especially if you are travelling through Botswana. A true fictional masterpiece of its own!
7) Circles in a forest – Author: Dalene Matthee
This international success of a novel details the extermination of the elephants and the exploitation of the woodcutters of the forests in Knysna, South Africa
8) Stealing Water – Author: Tim Ecott
Tim Ecotts family swapped Northern Ireland for apartheid Johannesburg in the 1970s. But just six months after arriving the family was bankrupt, evicted from their home and most of their possessions had been confiscated by the bailiffs. Whilst friends and relatives imagined they were living enviable lives in the sun, the reality was that the family was cast adrift. Forced to survive on their wits, they entered a twilight world where their true friends were prostitutes, thieves and renegades. Funny, witty and affecting, this is a very different African memoir about how the worst of times can become the most valuable period of a person’s life.
9) The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War – Authors: Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva
The Bang Bang Club is the true story of four young combat photographers (two are the authors) bonded by friendship and their sense of purpose to tell the truth. They risk their lives and use their cameras to tell the world of the violence associated with the first free elections in post-Apartheid South Africa
10) I Dreamed of Africa – Author: Kuki Gallmann
This powerful memoir tells the tale of Italian writer, Gallmann’s life-long affair with Africa – from her childhood fascination with the continent. At the age of 25, Kuki Gallmann moved to Kenya with her future husband, where they established a vast ranch. But Africa’s beauty doesn’t come without a price, and when tragedy struck, Kuki found herself pregnant and alone with her young son and 90,000 acres of Africa to oversee.
Written by: Michelle Lewis – Sales/Marketing