Chinua Achebe

The FT‘s former West Africa correspondent talks us through five books that helped him to understand Nigeria.

The award-winning novelist thinks Africans want to know how it is that white men have got their hands on all the money. He picks five books on what it means and meant to be white in Africa

The award-winning Nigerian writer, Helon Habila, picks his favourite books about Nigeria.

What is historical fiction? Does it have to be historically accurate? Zimbabwean novelist Tendai Huchu talks us through five important examples of historical novels, including three set in Africa.

‘Wherever you go today in the Congo, you will find monstrous warlords. But you will find far more volunteer nurses and Red Cross workers and teachers who haven’t been paid for 20 years but are still doing their job, not allowing things to fall apart.’

The author chooses his top five books on boyhood and growing up, major themes of his Booker-nominated debut The Fishermen.

Beleaguered ‘citizens of nowhere’ will be pleased to know they have their own literary genre. For anyone who has ever wondered where they belong, or why, when you leave your home country, it’s never the same when you return, here are the best five books to read—including some by the greatest authors of the 20th century.