Only Two African Books Make the UK Sunday Times' Top 100 of the Decade
Alert! As far as BOOK SA can tell, the UK’s Sunday Times has listed just two books from Africa in its round up of the top 100 tomes to have appeared in the decade that ends at midnight, 31 December 2009.
You know you’re in trouble, as an enthusiast of works from this continent, when Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s magnificent Half of a Yellow Sun squeaks in at number 98. Scrolling along, the next African work pops up at number 52: Youth by JM Coetzee. And from there on, it’s a drought.
98 Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2007) The Biafran War of the late 1960s is seen through the eyes of Ugwu, a 13-year-old peasant houseboy, and the beautiful, passionate twin sisters Olanna and Kainene. This stunning piece of writing won the 2007 Orange Prize.
[...]
52 Youth by J. M. Coetzee (2002) It has been called “portrait of the artist as a young drudge”. The protagonist leaves his native South Africa for London and gets a dull job. It’s a wonderful reconstruction of the powerlessness and frustration of youth, and the making of a writer’s mind.
I suppose we couldn’t have expected much more from a list that includes Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code in its top ten, but still, the impression that African letters come away slighted is strong.
The number one book of the decade, meanwhile, in the Times‘ opinion? Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
- The UK’s Sunday Times‘ top 100 books of the decade (starting at the bottom)
- The UK’s Sunday Times‘ top 100 books of the decade (starting at the top)
Book details
- Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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EAN: 9780007200283
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- Youth by JM Coetzee
EAN: 9780099433620
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