Fiction
Over 4500 titles contemporary African fiction, mainly in English, French, Portuguese and some in Swedish. Novels, short stories, poetry, drama, and books for children and young adults.
- Country + author, fiction, novels, short stories, poetry, plays, children's literature, juvenile literature, science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction.
- Language? Refine search results by language via facets next to the hitlist.
- Keywords (countries etc.) are all in English.
Lists compiled by us
Selections of fiction titles found in the NAI library collections. Lists in PDF format.
- Fiction from and about Kenya
Pdf, 1.4 MB. (updated 2021)
- Fiction from and about Namibia
Pdf, 1.7 MB. (updated 2022)
- Fiction from and about Nigeria
Pdf, 4.8 MB. (updated 2021)
- Fiction from and about South Africa
Pdf, 2 MB. (updated 2022)
- Fiction from and about Tanzania and Zanzibar
Pdf, 3.3 MB. (updated 2022)
- Fiction from and about Uganda
Pdf, 2.1 MB. (updated 2021)
- Fiction from and about Zimbabwe
Pdf, 3.4 MB. (updated 2021)
- African crime fiction
Pdf, 1.4 MB. (updated september 2022)
- African speculative fiction
Pdf, 7.4 MB. (updated september 2022)
Online resources
- Africa Book Link
External link, opens in new window. — Newsletter on new and forthcoming African literature, drama and criticism.
- African Speculative Fiction Society (ASFS)
External link, opens in new window. — Organization for writers of, and others interested in African science fiction, fantasy and related forms of fiction. Nommos awards, database of published African SFF, and more.
- AfricanWriter.com
External link, opens in new window. — "contributions exclusively from/about African writers (and writing) at home and abroad"
- Badilisha Poetry X-Change
External link, opens in new window. — "the largest online collective of African poets on the planet"
- Bakwa Magazine
External link, opens in new window. — "a magazine of cultural criticism"
- Book Dash
External link, opens in new window. — team-created African stories for children, in local languages, free to download
- Bookshy
External link, opens in new window. — "contemporary African literature"
- Brittle paper
External link, opens in new window. — Virtual space/station for reinventing African fiction and literary culture. By Ainehi Edoro, Duke University (USA)
- Doek!
External link, opens in new window. — Namibian literary magazine that publishes short fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art from Namibia and the African diaspora.
- Flash Fiction Ghana
External link, opens in new window. — "the best flash fiction from Ghana"
- ImageNations
External link, opens in new window. — "promoting African Literature"
- InZync poetry sessions
External link, opens in new window. — part of SLiP, the Stellenbosch Literary Project, and its "discursive platforms where creative literary practices can be shared and engaged with"
- Jalada
External link, opens in new window. — A pan-African writers' collective publishing literature by African authors in online anthologies
- Kalahari review
External link, opens in new window. — An African-centric magazine interested in material exploring Africa and Africans in unique and avant-garde ways
- Kinna Reads
External link, opens in new window. — "books, reading and world literature"
- Klorofyl
External link, opens in new window. — An online magazine, with a focus on literary and graphic art, and the lives of young Africans
- Lawino
External link, opens in new window. — Lawino is an electronic magazine started by writers, to promote writing from Africa, with particular focus on Uganda
- Mosaic
External link, opens in new window. — Explores the literary arts by writers of African descent, and features interviews, essays, and book reviews
- The Naked Convos
External link, opens in new window. — blog/community with a fiction section
- Omenana
External link, opens in new window. — "speculative fiction from writers across Africa and the African Diaspora"
- Poda-Poda
External link, opens in new window. — Digital platform for stories form Sierra Leone and the Sierra Leonean diaspora.
- Reading Zimbabwe
External link, opens in new window. — digital platform on Zimbabwean literatures (not only fiction)
- Saraba
External link, opens in new window. — website and publication representing emerging writers from Nigeria and Africa
- Science Fiction & Fantasy South Africa (SFFSA)
External link, opens in new window. — club for sf and fantasy fans, incl. the fanzine Probe
- Takam Tikou
External link, opens in new window. — Online journal on children´s literature, from National library in France (in French)
- Word n Sound
External link, opens in new window. — South African spoken word project
- Words are Work
External link, opens in new window. — literary blog/community
- BookBrowse
External link, opens in new window. (discussion questions etc.)
- Popular African Fiction @ Goodreads
External link, opens in new window. (book recommendations etc.)
- Reading Group Guides
External link, opens in new window. (discussion questions etc.)
- Books LIVE @ Twitter
External link. (Network for southern African writers/publishers)
- Commonwealth Writers @ Twitter
External link.
- Direct Twitter search: "African fiction"
External link.
Some titles in these lists are in the NAI library collections, but not all.
- One hundred books from Africa
External link, opens in new window. — African Writing Online
- An African Reading List
External link. — Bookriot
- 50 Books By African Women That Everyone Should Read 1
External link, opens in new window. — What's on Africa
- 50 Books By African Women That Everyone Should Read 2
External link, opens in new window. — Bookshy
- 50 Books By African Men That Everyone Should Read 1
External link, opens in new window. — What's on Africa
- 50 Books By African Men That Everyone Should Read 2
External link, opens in new window. — Bookshy
- African Sf : Introduction
External link, opens in new window. — Paradoxa vol. 25 (2013)
- African science fiction 1
External link, opens in new window. — Bookshy
- African science fiction 2
External link, opens in new window. — Bookshy
- 100 African Writers of SFF
External link, opens in new window. (science fiction and fantasy) — TOR.com
NAI publications
We took our website "100 vägar till Afrika" offline March 22, 2018. Instead we refer to the freely downloadable full text version of the corresponding book (in Swedish only):
- 100 vägar till Afrika. En introduktion till modern afrikansk skönlitteratur
External link, opens in new window. / Barbro Norström Ridæus, 2003.
The website from 2003 was based on the book mentioned above, published by The Nordic Africa Institute in 1995, and in a revised e-book edition 2003.
Would you like to see what the website looked like, visit Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://nai.uu.se/hundra_vagar/startsida.html External link, opens in new window.
Africa was the theme for the Göteborg Book Fair 2010 (archived website version External link, opens in new window.) and NAI was involved in the arrangements.
Several events with African authors and others were filmed and are still available for viewing online:
NAI published the book Africa has the floor, portraying participating African authors. Introductions by Henning Mankell and Véronique Tadjo. The book and the related photo exhibition are both freely available for download from our repository DiVA: