Postcolonial Voices

1

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe

Okonkwo, a respected warrior in the Igbo village of Umuofia, sees his world dismantled by the arrival of European missionaries and colonial administrators. The novel has sold over 20 million copies and is taught in schools across the world.

1958 Nigeria

2

Arrow of God

Chinua Achebe

The Chief Priest of Ulu in an Igbo village struggles to maintain his authority against the encroachment of British colonial rule and rival Christian missions. Achebe's most technically complex novel and, some critics argue, his finest.

1964 Nigeria

3

Americanah

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nigerian Ifemelu moves to the United States to study and writes a popular blog about race in America, while her first love Obinze attempts to emigrate to Britain. A sharp, funny, and incisive novel about race, identity, and the African immigrant experience.

2013 Nigeria

4

Purple Hibiscus

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Fifteen-year-old Kambili lives under the tyranny of her devout Catholic father in post-independence Nigeria. Her slow awakening to freedom and selfhood drives Adichie's debut novel, which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

2003 Nigeria

5

Half of a Yellow Sun

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The lives of three characters intersect during the Nigerian-Biafran War of the late 1960s — a war that resulted in the deaths of up to three million people, many from starvation. Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction.

2006 Nigeria

6

The God of Small Things

Arundhati Roy

Fraternal twins in Kerala, India, are scarred by a childhood tragedy shaped by caste, colonial history, and forbidden love. Roy's Booker Prize-winning debut, written over four years, is celebrated for its lyrical, unconventional prose.

1997 India

7

Midnight's Children

Salman Rushdie

Saleem Sinai, born at the stroke of Indian independence in 1947, discovers he is telepathically linked to the 1,000 other children born in that hour. Rushdie's Booker Prize-winning novel — later awarded the "Booker of Bookers" — is a magical-realist history of postcolonial India.

1981 India

8

Season of Migration to the North

Tayeb Salih

A Sudanese man returns home after years of study in England and meets Mustafa Sa'eed, a man who seduced and destroyed European women in London as an act of colonial revenge. A masterpiece of postcolonial literature.

1966 Sudan