I moved from Germany to Botswana when I was a fledgling translator and then on to South Africa 2 years later. I fell in love with this part of Africa that had a hand in making me the person I am today. Since I used to travel a lot, not all of my books are set in Southern Africa, but I have a passion for sharing my African stories with the world. My latest project is the Charlie Proudfoot murder mystery series, which is set in South Africa. Being a translator, I also translate books into German/English and four of them so far, are my own.
Bridget Reinhold’s sister disappears in the southern African country of Botswana. Although she is the more reclusive of the sisters, she courageously heads out to live in Africa to order to find Claire. At first, she suspects that a crime was committed, but the more she is drawn into the spell of Africa, other possibilities begin to emerge. Bridget’s life takes unexpected turns and she begins to wonder what is real and what is not and what she is doing in Botswana in the first place.
Shepherd is readers supported. When you buy through links on our website, we may earn an affiliate commission. This is how we fund this project for readers and authors (learn more).
Zoo City is set in a fictional reality Johannesburg. I like how observant she is when it comes to describing Johannesburg, the city where I live. A very clever book and not what you’d expect of a book on Africa. Lauren Beukes inspired me to consider writing about Johannesburg myself.
When I moved to Botswana, I wanted to learn more about the country, where I should live for more than 2 years. Somebody gave me books by Bessie Head and I learned so much by just reading these books. Maru was not the only book I’d read by Bessie Head, but it was one of the best books on Botswana.
Talk of the Town is a collection of short stories. Although the author describes foreigners in South Africa and has a political slant, he is not preachy like many other books on such topics. His style is quite witty, observant, and informative from his point of view. All qualities that I admire in a writer.
Okay, you might know this book series by Alexander McCall-Smith. Although I experienced Botswana differently, I must give him literary license when it comes dramatising life in this country. I like how he mixes facts about Botswana with his fictional stories and puts my country of choice (for a couple of years) on the map.
At the time this book hit the shelves, it was dangerous to write about the facts of state capture in South Africa. The courageous author was meticulous when doing his research and had to be careful at the same time not to be detected. He got the book published despite many threats against his life and attempts to discredit him. I’ll be forever grateful that the South African public was given this opportunity to learn more about corruption in politics. The book was sold out for months for a reason.
5,309 authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about Africa, Southern Africa, and Botswana.
We think you will like A Question of Power, Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White, and When the Lion Feeds: Volume 1 if you like this list.
From Robert's list on The best fantasy novels no one ever calls fantasy novels.
Do you like a good scare? Well, Stephen King is one kind of scary, but A Question of Power is something else altogether: a descent into a sunless valley writhing with monsters. We know that these monsters dwell in the mind of the main character, Elizabeth. But there’s no safety in knowing that, for we’re locked in with them. If we sometimes climb a tree and feel a fresh breeze on our faces, it’s with the knowledge that those tentacles can slither up and snatch us back into hell at a moment’s notice. And they do.
I didn’t start with what many consider the most important facts of this novel: that Elizabeth is a mixed-race woman born in South Africa and exiled to Botswana. And those are vital facts. But Elizabeth is also one luminous, suffering soul. Watching her fight her way out of that dark valley is a terrifying experience. But when at last she feels the sun on her face—oh, we feel it too.
From Kenneth's list on The best books about Southern Africa as picked by a historian.
Move Your Shadow is a masterpiece of reportage. Lelyveld, a former executive editor of the New York Times, spent considerable periods in apartheid South Africa in both the 1960s and the 1980s. The sixties was the period of “baaskap”—“bosshood” apartheid, when the perverse racist cruelties of the system were imposed with a sledgehammer. I would call the eighties the era of “facelift” apartheid—why, the word was hardly used by the regime anymore.
To paraphrase Gramsci, the old world was dying, a new one struggled to be born. Monsters abounded. Nobody captured the period better than Lelyveld. The chapter on Philip Kgosana, the idealist who led Cape Town demonstrations in 1960—at age 19—was betrayed by the state, and wound up in exile in Sri Lanka—is worth the price of the book.
From Evadeen's list on The best books of Southern Africa with wild life.