Every year, the number of exciting titles to look forward to grows and grows, and we couldn’t be more thrilled. On the list below, you will find some outstanding novels and exciting debuts from promising African authors that have been published that you should try and read.

1. A Nose and Three Eyes (Egypt)

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Written by iconic Egyptian novelist Ihsan Abdel Kouddous. A Nose and Three Eyes is a story of female desire and sexual awakening, of love and infatuation, and of exploitation and despair. It quietly critiques the strictures put upon women by conservative social norms and expectations, while a subtle undercurrent of political censure was carefully aimed at the then Nasser regime.

2. An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence (Sudan)

Written by Zeinab Badawi, a Sudanese-British citizen who resides in the UK. For too long, Africa’s history has been dominated by western narratives of slavery and colonialism, or simply ignored. Badawi guides us through Africa’s spectacular history – from the very origins of our species, through ancient civilisations and medieval empires with remarkable queens and kings, to the miseries of conquest and the elation of independence. Visiting more than thirty African countries to interview countless historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and local storytellers, she unearths buried histories from across the continent and gives Africa its rightful place in our global story.The result is a gripping new account of Africa: an epic, sweeping history of the oldest inhabited continent on the planet, told through the voices of Africans themselves.

3. Besaydoo (Sierra Leone)

Yalie Saweda Kamara is a Sierra Leonean American writer, educator, and researcher based in Oakland, California. The book is a fascinating collection of poetry that explores the joy, sadness, and confusion of being a first-generation American. In Besaydoo , Kamara serves as griot for the Freeborn in Oakland, the Sierra Leonean in California, the girl straddling womanhood, the woman re-discovering herself. “I am made from the obsession of detail,” she writes, setting scenes from her own multifaceted legacy in sharp the memory of her mother’s singing, savory stacks of lumpia, a church where “everyone is broken, but trying.” A multitudinous witness.

4. Bright Red Fruit (Sudan)

Safia Elhillo is a Sudanese-American poet known for her written and spoken poetry. An unflinching, honest novel in verse about a teenager’s journey into the slam poetry scene and the dangerous new relationship that could threaten all her dreams. No matter how hard Samira tries, she can’t shake her reputation. She’s never gotten the benefit of the doubt—not from her mother or the aunties who watch her like a hawk. Samira is determined to have a perfect summer filled with fun parties, exploring DC, and growing as a poet—until a scandalous rumor has her grounded and unable to leave her house. When Samira turns to a poetry forum for solace, she catches the eye of an older, charismatic poet named Horus. For the first time, Samira feels wanted. But soon she’s keeping a bigger secret than ever before—one that that could prove her reputation and jeopardize her place in her community. In this gripping coming-of-age novel from the critically acclaimed author Safia Elhillo, a young woman searches to find the balance between honoring her family, her artistry, and her authentic self.

5. Brutalism (Cameroon)

Joseph-Achille Mbembe, known as Achille Mbembe, is a Cameroonian historian, political theorist, and public intellectual. In Brutalism, Mbembe invokes the architectural aesthetic of brutalism to describe our moment, caught up in the pathos of demolition and production on a planetary scale. Just as brutalist architecture creates an effect of overwhelming weight and destruction, Mbembe contends that contemporary capitalism crushes and dominates all spheres of existence. Mbembe argues that Afro-diasporic thought presents the only solution for breaking the totalizing logic of contemporary capitalism: repairing that which is broken, developing a new planetary consciousness, and reforming a community of humans in solidarity with all living things.

6. Crooked Seeds (South Africa)

Karen Jennings is a South African author currently living in Brazil with her Brazilian husband. In exquisitely spare prose, Crooked Seeds is a singularly powerful novel about collective guilt, national traumas, and the ways we become trapped in prisons of our own making. A woman in post-apartheid South Africa confronts her family’s troubling past in this taut and daring novel about national trauma and collective guilt.

7. Womb City (Botswana)

Tlotlo Tsamaase is a Motswana speculative fiction writer and poet whose stories and poems have been nominated for or won numerous awards. Womb City imagines a dark and deadly future Botswana, rich with culture and true folklore, which begs the question: how far must one go to destroy the structures of inequality upon which a society was founded? How far must a mother go to save the life of her child?

8. Someone birthed them broken (Ghana)

Ama Asantewa Diaka is a Ghanaian poet, storyteller, and spoken word artist. In this startling collection of short fiction, Ama Asantewa Diaka creates a vibrant portrait of young Ghanaians’ today, captured in the experiences of characters whose lives bump against one other in friendship, passion, hope, and heartache. This emotionally rich work unveils profound truths about her country, its inhabitants, and the universality of human experience.

9. In the Shadow of the Fall (Nigeria)

Tobi Ogundiran is a Nigerian writer whose dark and fantastical tales have appeared in journals such as Lightspeed, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. In this book Ashâke is an acolyte in the temple of Ifa, yearning for the day she is made a priest and sent out into the world to serve the orisha. But of all the acolytes, she is the only one the orisha refuse to speak to. Desperate, Ashâke attempts to summon and trap an orisha―any orisha. Instead, she experiences a vision so terrible it draws the attention of a powerful enemy sect and thrusts Ashâke into the center of a centuries-old war that will shatter the very foundations of her world.

10. Allow Me to Introduce Myself (Nigeria)

Onyi Nwabineli is a Nigerian British head-wrap aficionado. A tack-sharp beautifully told tale of self-agency and reclaiming your power. Ever since she was a child, Anuri’s life was chronicled and monetized by her influencer stepmother. Now an adult, she’s finally broken free. But when her stepmother starts preying on her young half-sister, Anuri decides she must stop the cycle of abuse. This book is a stunning page-turner about overcoming toxic family and reclaiming identity and, ultimately, hope.