Fiction
Over 4500 titles contemporary African fiction, mainly in English, French, Portuguese and some in Swedish. Novels, short stories, poetry, drama, and books for children and young adults.
NAI library collections
Explore our fiction collection
Quick search on:
- Fiction acquired during the current year External link, opens in new window.
- Open access fiction titles External link, opens in new window.
- All fiction in our library collections External link, opens in new window.
Search hints:
- Country + author, fiction, novels, short stories, poetry, plays, children's literature, juvenile literature, science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction.
- Language? Refine search results by language via filters next to the hitlist.
- Keywords (countries etc.) are all in English.
Selected fiction titles in our collections
Lists are in PDF format.
Geographically
- Fiction from and about Algeria Pdf, 3.7 MB. (updated 2023)
- Fiction from and about Kenya Pdf, 4 MB. (updated 2023)
- Fiction from and about Namibia Pdf, 1.7 MB. (updated 2022)
- Fiction from and about Nigeria Pdf, 4.9 MB. (updated 2023)
- Fiction from and about Senegal Pdf, 3.5 MB. (updated 2023)
- Fiction from and about South Africa Pdf, 2 MB. (updated 2022)
- Fiction from and about Tanzania and Zanzibar Pdf, 3.3 MB. (updated 2022)
- Fiction from and about Uganda Pdf, 3.6 MB. (updated 2023)
- Fiction from and about Zimbabwe Pdf, 3.4 MB. (updated 2023)
Thematically
- African crime fiction Pdf, 1.4 MB. (updated september 2022)
- African speculative fiction Pdf, 7.4 MB. (updated september 2022)
What is available online?
Open access fiction titles External link, opens in new window. are occasionally added to our catalogue. These titles are available freely for anyone, anywhere.
African Writers Series. The online edition of selected works from the Heinemann series of modern African literature, published 1946-2003, is available on-site at NAI, or remotely for some users, under certain conditions, through our remote access package.
NAI institutional publications
100 vägar till Afrika : en introduktion till modern afrikansk skönlitteratur (2003)
We took our website "100 vägar till Afrika" offline March 22, 2018. Instead we refer to the freely downloadable full text version of the corresponding book (in Swedish only):
- 100 vägar till Afrika. En introduktion till modern afrikansk skönlitteratur External link, opens in new window. / Barbro Norström Ridæus, 2003.
The website from 2003 was based on the book mentioned above, published by The Nordic Africa Institute in 1995, and in a revised e-book edition 2003.
Would you like to see what the website looked like, visit Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://nai.uu.se/hundra_vagar/startsida.html External link, opens in new window.
Africa was the theme for the Göteborg Book Fair 2010 (archived website version External link, opens in new window.) and NAI was involved in the arrangements.
Several events with African authors and others were filmed and are still available for viewing online:
NAI published the book Africa has the floor, portraying participating African authors. Introductions by Henning Mankell and Véronique Tadjo. The book and the related photo exhibition are both freely available for download from our repository DiVA:
Others' online resources
- Africa Book Link External link, opens in new window. — Newsletter on new and forthcoming African literature, drama and criticism.
- African Speculative Fiction Society (ASFS) External link, opens in new window. — Organization for writers of, and others interested in African science fiction, fantasy and related forms of fiction. Nommos awards, database of published African SFF, and more.
- AfricanWriter.com External link, opens in new window. — "contributions exclusively from/about African writers (and writing) at home and abroad"
- Badilisha Poetry X-Change External link, opens in new window. — "the largest online collective of African poets on the planet"
- Bakwa Magazine External link, opens in new window. — "a magazine of cultural criticism"
- Book Dash External link, opens in new window. — team-created African stories for children, in local languages, free to download
- Bookshy External link, opens in new window. — "contemporary African literature"
- Brittle paper External link, opens in new window. — Virtual space/station for reinventing African fiction and literary culture. By Ainehi Edoro, Duke University (USA)
- Doek! External link, opens in new window. — Namibian literary magazine that publishes short fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art from Namibia and the African diaspora.
- Flash Fiction Ghana External link, opens in new window. — "the best flash fiction from Ghana"
- ImageNations External link, opens in new window. — "promoting African Literature"
- Imbiza Journal for African writing External link, opens in new window. — "combines imaginative and scholarly writing to cater for diverse audiences"
- InZync poetry sessions External link, opens in new window. — part of SLiP, the Stellenbosch Literary Project, and its "discursive platforms where creative literary practices can be shared and engaged with"
- Jalada External link, opens in new window. — A pan-African writers' collective publishing literature by African authors in online anthologies
- Kalahari review External link, opens in new window. — An African-centric magazine interested in material exploring Africa and Africans in unique and avant-garde ways
- Kikwetu External link, opens in new window. — "online literary journal that publishes both new and established writers from East Africa and beyond in English and Swahili."
- Kinna Reads External link, opens in new window. — "books, reading and world literature"
- Klorofyl External link, opens in new window. — An online magazine, with a focus on literary and graphic art, and the lives of young Africans
- Lawino External link, opens in new window. — Lawino is an electronic magazine started by writers, to promote writing from Africa, with particular focus on Uganda
- Lolwe External link, opens in new window. — "Pan-African literary magazine that publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, photography, and literary criticism"
- Mosaic External link, opens in new window. — Explores the literary arts by writers of African descent, and features interviews, essays, and book reviews
- The Naked Convos External link, opens in new window. — blog/community with a fiction section
- Omenana External link, opens in new window. — "speculative fiction from writers across Africa and the African Diaspora"
- Poda-Poda External link, opens in new window. — Digital platform for stories form Sierra Leone and the Sierra Leonean diaspora.
- Saraba External link, opens in new window. — website and publication representing emerging writers from Nigeria and Africa
- Science Fiction & Fantasy South Africa (SFFSA) External link, opens in new window. — club for sf and fantasy fans, incl. the fanzine Probe
- Takam Tikou External link, opens in new window. — Online journal on children´s literature, from National library in France (in French)
- Word n Sound External link, opens in new window. — South African spoken word project
- BookBrowse External link, opens in new window. (discussion questions etc.)
- Popular African Fiction @ Goodreads External link, opens in new window. (book recommendations etc.)
- Reading Group Guides External link, opens in new window. (discussion questions etc.)
Some titles in these lists can be found in the NAI library collections, but not all.
- One hundred books from Africa External link, opens in new window. — African Writing Online
- An African Reading List External link. — Bookriot
- 50 Books By African Women That Everyone Should Read 1 External link, opens in new window. — What's on Africa
- 50 Books By African Women That Everyone Should Read 2 External link, opens in new window. — Bookshy
- 50 Books By African Men That Everyone Should Read 1 External link, opens in new window. — What's on Africa
- 50 Books By African Men That Everyone Should Read 2 External link, opens in new window. — Bookshy
- African Sf : Introduction External link, opens in new window. — Paradoxa vol. 25 (2013)
- African science fiction 1 External link, opens in new window. — Bookshy
- African science fiction 2 External link, opens in new window. — Bookshy
- 100 African Writers of SFF External link, opens in new window. (science fiction and fantasy) — TOR.com