Toward the end of 2023, we published a list of the books we thoroughly enjoyed reading over the course of the year, which included works by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, Chika Unigwe, Stephen Buoro, Bisi Adjapon, Leila Aboulela, and many others. Now our editor in chief, Ukamaka Olisakwe, has compiled a list of the books we are most excited about, all coming out this 2024. They include exciting new titles by Chigozie Obioma, Safia Elhillo, ‘Pemi Aguda, Dinaw Mengestu, Chioma Okereke, Dennis Mugaa, and so many others.
Meet them:
The Road to the Country
Author: Chigozie Obioma
Publisher’s description: “An odyssey of love and unimaginable courage set during one of the most devastating conflicts in the history of the African continent. Intertwining myth and realism into a thrilling, inspired, and emotionally powerful novel.”
My Parents’ Marriage
Author: Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond
Publisher’s description: “Brew-Hammond makes her highly anticipated return with this soaring and profound story about love and understanding told through three generations of one Ghanian family.”
Like Water Like Sea
Author: Olumide Popoola
Publisher’s description: “An immersive novel of self-discovery, resilience, and the unifying power of love. It follows the life of Nia, a queer, bi/pansexual naturopath in London, as her life unfolds across three pivotal moments, spanning from her 28th year to a life-altering realisation at the age of 50.”
We Were Girls Once
Author: Aiwanose Odafen
Publisher’s description: “From Aiwanose Odafen, the author of Tomorrow I Become a Woman, an ambitious, moving novel that charts three women’s shifting relationships against a modernising, volatile Nigeria in the 1990s and beyond.”
Read our full review of the book here.
Half Portraits Under Water
Author: Dennis Mugaa
Publisher’s description: “Half Portraits Under Water is a collection of ten loosely interlinked stories that explore love, loss, and the interconnected nature of human experiences.”
Rinsing Mukami’s Soul
Author: Njambi McGrath
Publisher’s description: “An incisive novel laying bare the contradictory societal response to gender, sex and redemption. Rinsing Mukami’s Soul looks at revenge as a powerful tool for reclamation when young Mukami’s carefully ordered life is cruelly thrust into scandal.”
These Letters End in Tears
Author: Musih Tedji Xaviere
Publisher’s description: “Set in a country where being gay is punishable by law, These Letters End in Tears is the heart-wrenching forbidden love story of a Christian girl with a rebellious heart and a Muslim girl leading a double life.”
Ghostroots
Author: ‘Pemi Aguda
Publisher’s description: “In this beguiling collection of twelve imaginative stories set in Lagos, Nigeria, ’Pemi Aguda dramatizes the tension between our yearning to be individuals and the ways we are haunted by what came before.”
Water Baby
Author: Chioma Okereke
Publisher’s description: “Baby yearns for an existence where she can escape the future her father has planned for her. With opportunities scarce, Baby jumps at the chance to join a newly launched drone-mapping project, aimed at broadening the visibility of her community. Then a video of her at work goes viral and Baby finds herself with options she could never have imagined.”
Womb City
Author: Tlotlo Tsamaase
Publisher’s description: “This genre-bending Africanfuturist horror novel blends The Handmaid’s Tale with Get Out in an adrenaline-packed, cyberpunk body-hopping ghost story exploring motherhood, memory, and a woman’s right to her own body.”
A Kind of Madness
Author: Uche Okonkwo
Publisher’s description: “A collection of ten stories concerned with literal madness but also those private feelings that, when left unspoken, can feel like a type of madness: desire, desperation, hunger, fear, sadness, shame, longing.”
Blessings
Author: Chukwuebuka Ibeh
Publisher’s description: “An elegant and exquisitely moving story of love and loneliness. Asking how we can live freely when politics reaches into our hearts and lives, as well as deep into our consciousness, it is a stunning, searing debut.”
The Road to the Salt Sea
Author: Samuel Kolawole
Publisher’s description: “Suspenseful, incisive, and illuminating, The Road to the Salt Sea is a story of family, fate, religion, survival, the failures of the Nigerian class system, and what often happens to those who seek their fortunes elsewhere.”
Bright Red Fruit
Author: Safia Elhillo
Publisher’s description: “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.”
Crooked Seeds
Author: Karen Jennings
Publisher’s description: “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.”
Only Big Bumbum Matters Tomorrow
Author: Damilare Kuku
Publisher’s description: “Kuku brings her signature humor, boldness, and compassion to each member of this loveable but exasperating family, whose lives reveal the ways in which a woman’s physical appearance can dictate her life and relationships and show just how sharp the double-edged sword of beauty can be.”
A Nose and Three Eyes
Author: Ihsan Abdel Kouddous, and translated by Jonathan Smolin
Publisher’s description: “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.”
And So I Roar
Author: Abi Daré
Publisher’s description: “When Tia accidentally overhears a whispered conversation between her mother—terminally ill and lying in a hospital bed in Port Harcourt, Nigeria—and her aunt, the repercussions will send her on a desperate quest to uncover a secret her mother has been hiding for nearly two decades.”
An Imperfect Storm
Authors: Chikwe Ihekweazu and Vivianne Ihekweazu
Publisher’s description: “This book explores the phenomenon never before witnessed in grand scale and in small details. It is a book about the love of humanity, the power of family, of hope, resilience, and collaboration. It is Chikwe and Vivianne Ihekweazu’s personal account, but also an important piece of history.”
After the End
Author: Olukorede S. Yishau
Publisher’s description: “Idera’s world crumbles when her husband, Demola, dies. As she battles with this reality, she is met with a shocking discovery. A woman appears at her door with a child in hand—Demola’s son.”
Convergence Problems
Author: Wole Talabi
Publisher’s description: “The sixteen stories of Convergence Problems, which include work published for the first time in this collection, rare stories, and recently acclaimed work, showcase Talabi at his creative best: playful and profound, exciting and experimental, always interesting.”
Someone Like Us
Author: Dinaw Mengestu
Publisher’s description: “The son of Ethiopian immigrants seeks to understand a hidden family history and uncovers a past colored by unexpected loss, addiction, and the enduring emotional pull toward home.”
Allow Me to Introduce Myself
Author: Onyi Nwabineli
Publisher’s description: “Through biting wit and heartfelt introspection, this darkly humorous story dives deep into the deceptive allure of a picture-perfect existence, the overexposure of children in social media and the excitement of self-discovery.”
Little Rot
Author: Akwaeke Emezi
Publisher’s description: “One weekend. The elite underbelly of a Nigerian city. A party that goes awry. A tangled web of sex and lies and corruption that leaves no one unscathed.”
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