Category: Africa

War Girls

By Tochi Onyebuchi

The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters have rendered much of earth unlivable. Only the lucky ones have escaped to space colonies in the sky.

In a war-torn Nigeria, battles are fought using flying, deadly mechs and soldiers are outfitted with bionic limbs and artificial organs meant to protect them from the harsh, radiation-heavy climate. Across the nation, as the years-long civil war wages on, survival becomes the only way of life.

Two sisters, Onyii and Ify, dream of more. Their lives have been marked by violence and political unrest. Still, they dream of peace, of hope, of a future together.

And they’re willing to fight an entire war to get there.

Representation: Black cast; Black MC; Muslim MC; Muslim side characters; f/f relationships.

Ownvoices: Black representation.

City of Saints & Thieves

By Natalie C. Anderson

A murder mystery set in Kenya, starring Tina, a refugee whose mother was murdered. She survives by joining a gang and becoming a master thief before embarking on a revenge vendetta. Black, gay secondary character – best friend. Best of books with black characters.

Check out this book and more on our best of list for books with Black characters.

Publisher’s Description

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo meets Gone Girl in this enthralling YA murder mystery set in Kenya.

In the shadows of Sangui City, there lives a girl who doesn’t exist. After fleeing the Congo as refugees, Tina and her mother arrived in Kenya looking for the chance to build a new life and home. Her mother quickly found work as a maid for a prominent family, headed by Roland Greyhill, one of the city’s most respected business leaders. But Tina soon learns that the Greyhill fortune was made from a life of corruption and crime. So when her mother is found shot to death in Mr. Greyhill’s personal study, she knows exactly who’s behind it.

With revenge always on her mind, Tina spends the next four years surviving on the streets alone, working as a master thief for the Goondas, Sangui City’s local gang. It’s a job for the Goondas that finally brings Tina back to the Greyhill estate, giving her the chance for vengeance she’s been waiting for. But as soon as she steps inside the lavish home, she’s overtaken by the pain of old wounds and the pull of past friendships, setting into motion a dangerous cascade of events that could, at any moment, cost Tina her life. But finally uncovering the incredible truth about who killed her mother—and why—keeps her holding on in this fast-paced nail-biting thriller.

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Representation:
Gender:
Cis boys: Boyboy

Sexual  Orientation:
Gay/Queer: Boyboy

Romantic Orientation:
Homoromantic:Boyboy

Race/Ethnicity:
Black: Boyboy

Trigger warnings: sexual assault/rape

A Map of Home

By Randa Jarrar

Nidali is a bi, religious Palestinian woman who recounts a childhood in Kuwait, her teenage years in Egypt, and then fleeing to America in the 90s.

Publisher’s Description

Nidali narrates the story of her childhood in Kuwait, her teenage years in Egypt, and her family’s last flight to Texas, offering a humorous, sharp but loving portrait of an eccentric middle-class family.

Nidali, the rebellious daughter of an Egyptian-Greek mother and a Palestinian father, narrates the story of her childhood in Kuwait, her teenage years in Egypt (to where she and her family fled the 1990 Iraqi invasion), and her family’s last flight to Texas. Nidali mixes humor with a sharp, loving portrait of an eccentric middle-class family, and this perspective keeps her buoyant through the hardships she encounters: the humiliation of going through a checkpoint on a visit to her father’s home in the West Bank; the fights with her father, who wants her to become a famous professor and stay away from boys; the end of her childhood as Iraq invades Kuwait on her thirteenth birthday; and the scare she gives her family when she runs away from home.

Funny, charming, and heartbreaking, A Map of Home is the kind of book Tristram Shandy or Huck Finn would have narrated had they been born Egyptian-Palestinian and female in the 1970s.

Genre: Historical

Representation:
Gender:
Cis girls: Nidali

Sexual Orientation:
Bisexual: Nidali

Romantic Orientation:
Biromantic: Nidali

Race/Ethnicity:
Middle Eastern/North African: Nidali

Religion:
Islam: Nidali

Trigger Warnings: Violence and war

Kaleidoscope Song

By Fox Benwell

Neo loves music and loves Tale, who sings like no other. In South Africa, their love can be a dangerous thing, but Neo refuses to give up what she loves.

Publisher’s Description

South Africa is loud. Listen. Do you hear the song and dance of it? The chorus of Khayelitsha life? Every voice is different, its pitch and tone and intonation as distinct as the words we choose and how we wrap our mouths around them. But everybody has a voice, and everybody sings…

Fifteen year old Neo loves music, it punctuates her life and shapes the way she views the world. A life in radio is all she’s ever wanted.
When Umzi Radio broadcasts live in a nearby bar Neo can’t resist. She sneaks out to see them, and she falls in love, with music, and the night, but also with a girl: Tale has a voice like coffee poured into a bright steel mug, and she commands the stage.

It isn’t normal. Isn’t right. Neo knows that she’s supposed to go to school and get a real job and find a nice young boy to settle down with. It’s written everywhere – in childhood games, and playground questions, in the textbooks, in her parents’ faces. But Tale and music are underneath her skin, and try as she might, she can’t stop thinking about them.

Genre: Contemporary

Representation:
Gender:
Cis girls:  Neo, Tale

Sexual  Orientation:
Lesbian/Queer: Neo, Tale

Romantic Orientation:
Homoromantic: Neo, Tale

Race/Ethnicity:
Black: Neo, Tale

Note: unhappy ending – death, rape/sexual assault, hate crime, murder