Three books by writers from Chad, set there, that give a real sense of the place, starting with Told by Starlight in Chad and A Teenager in the Chad Civil War: A Memoir of Survival, 1982–1986.
Few books from Chad are available in English, because most Chadian writing is in French. Much of the country's storytelling lives in spoken languages such as Chadian Arabic and Sara, and the small written tradition keeps returning to war, dictatorship and exile.
Start with Joseph Brahim Seid's Told by Starlight in Chad, tales of kingdoms, folklore and village life by the writer often counted as the country's first published author. Ésaïe Toïngar's A Teenager in the Chad Civil War recalls surviving the early years of Hissène Habré's rule, which lasted from 1982 to 1990. Nimrod: Selected Writings brings the poet and philosopher into English, with stories of a childhood home in Rivers' Gold alongside his essays and poems.
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Traditional Chadian folktales told at night, conveying Sahelian village life, oral storytelling, and the moral world of Chad's peoples.
A boy from southern Chad recounts how he fled his village and survived among the southern rebels during the brutal early years of Hissène Habré's rule.
Chad's leading poet-philosopher in English at last: his stories of a childhood home under a stifling regime in Rivers' Gold, alongside essays on Senghor and Négritude and a selection of poems.
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