Achebe is best known for his first novel and magnum opus, “Things Fall Apart,” which explores the effects of British colonialism and Christian missionaries in Nigeria. Time magazine named “Things Fall Apart” one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. It has been translated into more than 50 languages. Achebe died in 2013 in Boston.
Source: Wikipedia.org
Asare is the writer and illustrator of “Sosu’s Call,” a book for young people about heroism and self acceptance that gives a glimpse into Ghanaian life. “Sosu’s Call” earned Asare the 1999 UNESCO prize and the International Board on Books for Young People’s Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities award.
Source: Books.google.com
Dangarembga is the author of the novel, “Nervous Conditions,” which explores through the story of a Rhodesian family how colonialism affected class, gender, culture and race dynamics in Rhodesia. The book was awarded the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1989 and is celebrated within and outside Africa as a great work of African feminism.
Source: Wikipedia.org
Mahfouz is a Nobel Prize winner and the creator of “The Cairo Trilogy” novel trilogy, which follows a Cairene patriarch through three generations, showing the socio-political climate in Egypt from the time of the Egyptian Revolution to the end of World War II.
Source: Wikipedia.org
Mofolo is the author of “Chaka,” a mythical novel that tells the story of the famous Zulu military leader Shaka Zulu. A panel organized by respected Kenyan academic writer Ali Al’amin Mazrui named “Chaka” one of the 12 best works of African literature of the 2oth century. He lived from 1876 to 1948.
Source: Wikipedia.org
Thiong’o is the author of the Penguin Modern Classics book “A Grain of Wheat,” which follows the lives of several characters during Kenya’s struggle for independence — known as The Kenya Emergency — between 1952 and 1959.
Source: Wikipedia.org
Soyinka was the first person in Africa to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. He also was honored with the Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award. He is best known for his autobiography, “Ake: The Years of Childhood,” in which he recounts what it was like growing up with traditional Yoruba customs and under the influence of Christian missionaries.
Source: Wikipedia.org
Djebar is a notable feminist writer who was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature by the University of Oklahoma’s international literary publication, “World Literature Today.” She also won the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. She is best known for “L’ Amour, La Fantasia” (or “Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade”), a novel about a girl who escapes her coastal town in Algeria to fight the French during French domination in 1830.
Source: Wikipedia.org
Bâ was awarded the first Noma Prize (established in honor of Japanese publisher Shoichi Noma) for Publishing in Africa. She received the prize for her best-known work, “So Long a Letter,” which celebrates how African women have helped shape their communities. “So Long a Letter” has been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Source: Wikipedia.org
Couto won the 2014 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. His works have been translated into more than 20 languages, and his first novel, “Terra Sonâmbula,” was named one of the 12 best African books of the 20th century by an international panel at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair.
Source: Wikipedia.org
