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Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe
Novel, 1958
Igbo village life in the 1890s and the arrival of missionaries and colonial rule, told from within the community.
Books set in Nigeria
Nine books by writers from Nigeria, set there, that give a real sense of the place, starting with Things Fall Apart and Half of a Yellow Sun.
About the literature of Nigeria
Nigeria produced the first African winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature: the playwright and poet Wole Soyinka, in 1986. Most Nigerian fiction is written in English but rooted in Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa life and storytelling. The Biafran War of 1967–70 and the colonial era recur, and writers have often paid for speaking out: Soyinka himself was imprisoned during the war.
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart tells of Igbo village life in the 1890s as missionaries and colonial rule arrive. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun follows the Biafran War through a household in the university town of Nsukka. Ben Okri's The Famished Road, about a spirit-child in a poor city neighbourhood, blends Yoruba folklore with political unrest, while Abubakar Adam Ibrahim's Season of Crimson Blossoms sets a widow's affair with a young gang leader in Abuja.
By writers from Nigeria
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Half of a Yellow Sun
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Novel, 2006
The Biafran War of 1967–70 seen through Igbo and expatriate lives in Nsukka, Enugu and refugee camps.
Purple Hibiscus
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Novel, 2003
A devout Catholic family in Enugu under a military-era political backdrop, with village life around Nsukka.
The Famished Road
Ben Okri
Novel, 1991
A spirit-child in a poor urban community on the eve of independence, blending Yoruba folklore with political unrest.
Arrow of God
Chinua Achebe
Novel, 1964
Igbo religion, authority and colonial administration collide in 1920s village Nigeria.
The Joys of Motherhood
Buchi Emecheta
Novel, 1979
A woman's struggles in colonial-era Lagos, showing Igbo gender expectations, urban poverty and changing family life.
Stay With Me
Ayobami Adebayo
Novel, 2017
A marriage in 1980s–90s Nigeria, shaped by Yoruba family expectations, polygamy and political turbulence.
Season of Crimson Blossoms
Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
Novel, 2015
A widow's affair in northern Nigeria, set among Hausa Muslim society in Abuja and Kaduna.
The Death of Vivek Oji
Akwaeke Emezi
Novel, 2020
Follows a Igbo-Tamil family in Nigeria's southeastern town of Imo State, showing 1990s-2000s middle-class life, queerness, grief, and community secrets.
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