Africa Reading Challenge

Via Meskel Square I learned of the Africa Reading Challenge created by the blog Siphoning Off a Few Thoughts:
Participants commit to read - in the course of 2008 - six books that either were written by African writers, take place in Africa, or deal significantly with Africans and African issues.
Participants will write about the books on their blogs and a list with links will be (well, is already being) kept at Siphoning Off a Few Thoughts.

There are a few reasons why I'm going to participate in the Challenge. We are lucky to live in a time when African literature of all sorts is plentiful (though, sadly, less in Africa than outside it, because the infrastructure for book production and distribution on the continent is limited to a few countries) and it's a particular interest of mine, but a recent enough one that my knowledge is still pretty superficial. I hope the Reading Challenge will increase people's curiosity about what books are out there, and I look forward to the various discussions.

I'm not going to have time to start reading for a couple months, but I want to put my list together while I'm thinking of it. It may change. Today, what I expect I will read are the following books:These are mostly books I've been meaning to get to for a little while, and the Challenge gives me a good excuse to stop procrastinating.

I hope many more people will sign up for the Challenge, particularly people who have not read much African writing. If you're looking for information on other books by Africans and/or about Africa, here are a few resources:

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