"'We should have known the end was near.' So begins Imbolo Mbue's exquisite and devastating novel How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells the story of a people living in fear amidst environmental degradation wrought by a large and powerful American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of clean up and financial reparations to the...

Moyo and his sister Japera hurry to the baobab tree in their African village, wondering whether they will find peddlers, conversation among the elders, storytellers, or perhaps something new.

Sékou, the village chief's son, returns from the market with an unusual treasure for the villagers--an umbrella! What are all the things they can do with it? This picture book from Africa will spark young readers' imagination.

A startling novel by the leading writer of the new South Africa As the novel opens Camugu, who left for America during apartheid, has returned to Johannesburg. Disillusioned by the problems of the new democracy, he follows his "famous lust" to Qolorha on the remote Eastern Cape. There in the nineteenth century a teenage prophetess named Nonqawuse commanded the Xhosa people to kill their cattle and burn their crops, promising that once they did so...

When the cart breaks down and the villagers can't get their goods to market, Oluwalase Babatunde Benson, otherwise known as the No. 1 car spotter in his village, comes up with a brilliant solution.

Joseph carves a cradle for his new baby from the trunk of the big tree standing in the heart of the village. From that point on, the cradle is passed on for every baby born in the village.