First Reading Challenge of the Year – Africa Reading Challenge

Last year, I narrowed my reading focus on Japan . I enjoyed the books I read a lot, but I am thinking I want to focus on another geographic location as my theme for 2014.

I just started reading We Need New Namesby NoViolet Bulawayo, and was thinking I just don’t read enough books on Africa, when bam, I thought I bet there’s a reading challenge out there on African literature, and guess what? I was right. There is one hosted by Kinna Reads.

As per the reading challenge, I need to read at least 5 books on Africa. Of course, the first book on my list is going to be We Need New Names that is based in Zimbabwe, and which I just started reading now.

I have made a preliminary list of other books/authors that I have been interested in reading but never actually got around to doing so. It’s pretty fluid though, and I mayalmost definitely change my mind during the course of this challenge.

1. Any book by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – author from Nigeria
2. A book by Abraham Verghese – from Ethiopia although Cutting From Stone, a book I read last year seems to be his only book based in Africa)
3. A classic set in Africa (so that I can club this with my Classics Club reading challenge) I am thinking I could reread Heart of Darkness and the Congo Diary that is set in Congo by Joseph Conrad.
4. I’ve heard good things about So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba that is based in Western Africa, and this is another book I could club in my Classics Club reading challenge

So, there, some of my reading for 2014 is already sorted 

 .

What reading challenges are you signing up for? Would you like to join the African reading challenge with us?