Uwem Akpan, a Nigerian born Jesuit priest, with a MFA in Michigan, now teaches in Zimbabwe. “Say You're One of Them” is his first collection of stories and a brilliant start to his career.  Set in Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Benin, each story is told from the perspective of a child who is caught up in a world of poverty, corruption and violence.  Although fiction, the work stems from personal research of children in each area.  Through stunning prose and heart-wrenching imagery, Akpan paints a sad but at times beautiful picture of hope and incredible resilience from the smallest and too often forgotten victims of Africa's conflicts.

Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s second novel takes the reader on an emotional ride into a nation on the brink of war and follows the characters as they experience the traumas of warfare and live in aftermath of the horrors witnessed. Although this novel is based on the Nigerian-Biafra war, its message transcends local strife and speaks to holistic human experiences of suffering, death, and despair, but concludes with a ray of hope. This is a must read for anyone ready to learn more about the world through a page-turning historical fiction novel.

Peter Godwin is a Zimbabwe-born author who currently writes for the New York Times and teaches at Columbia University. “When a Crocodile Eats the Sun” is his latest and possibly his most spectacular work to date. The novel describes the author’s experiences as he lived between his homes in Zimbabwe and New York City during the brutal expropriation of white-owned farmland all over Zimbabwe that began in 2000. Godwin writes a dazzling and harrowing memoir that exquisitely weaves the daily lives of his family and friends into the overall Zimbabwean situation to produce a work that not only relays the astonishing facts and figures, but also employs a level of chilling personalization.

Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski traveled to Ethiopia in the wake of the coup that marked the end of Emperor Haile Selassie’s forty-four year reign.  “The Emperor” examines the final days of Haile Selassie’s rule told through the voices of members of the imperial court.  At times outlandish, funny, and unbelievable, and at other points tragic and poignant, these accounts paint a striking picture of a man who went from near god-hood to imprisonment and death in his own Grand Palace.