We list here a few resources to get you started learning about the continent and people of Africa. Many books and movies describe African tragedies in great detail. We lean toward resources that portray Africans as acting in strength and hope.

Please let us know of resources on Africa that you have found helpful. We are particularly interested in those with an African point of view.

John Reader and Michael Lewis. Africa. National Geographic, 2001

Adam Hochschild. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Mariner Books, 1999

Philip Gourevitch. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda. Picadour, USA, 1998

Sachs, Jeffrey. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. New York: Penguin Press, 2005

Easterly, William. The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done so Much Ill and So Little Good. New York: Penguin Press, 2006

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus; Half of a Yellow Sun; The Thing Around Your Neck

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart. Penguin, 2006 (written in 1958)

Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Back Bay Books, 1995

Charles Larson (Ed.) Under African Skies: Modern African Stories. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, Devil on the Cross

Sembene Ousmane, God's Bits of Wood

Uwem Akpan, Say You're One of Them

Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions

Buchi Emecheta, Joys of Motherhood

Chris Abani, GraceLand

National Geographic Magazine, September 2005. Special issue on Africa

Vanity Fair Magazine, July 2007. Special issue on Africa

Wainaina, Binyavanga. How to write about Africa. Granta Magazine, issue number 92

World News Network: Africa

BBC: Africa

World Fact Book

Movies that paint Africans in a positive light are hard to find. The vast majority of films about Africa fall into three types:

• African atrocities (examples: Blood Diamond, Hotel Rwanda, The Last King of Scotland)
• The triumphs and tragedies of white people in Africa (examples: Out of Africa, The Power of One, Nowhere in Africa, The Constant Gardener)
• African wildlife (examples: Wild Animals of Africa, Africa: The Serengeti, Kilimanjaro: The Root of Africa)