The genre of African fantasy offers readers a rich kaleidoscope of magical worlds, mythical creatures, and unforgettable adventures. African fantasy is not just about magic and monsters; it’s about the complexities of our cultures, the depths of our histories, and the richness of our mythologies. It’s about exploring the unknown, the unseen, and the unspoken. Here's a list of sensational reads that can provide comfort, ideas, adventure, and empowerment.
Adinkra symbols from Ghana, often used in African storytelling.
Featured African Fantasy Books
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Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.
Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good. Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. They killed my mother. They took our magic. They tried to bury us. Now we rise.
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The Famished Road by Ben Okri
In the decade since it won the Booker Prize, Ben Okri’s The Famished Road has become a classic. The narrator, Azaro, is an abiku, a spirit child, who in the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria exists between life and death. The life he foresees for himself and the tale he tells is full of sadness and tragedy, but inexplicably he is born with a smile on his face. Nearly called back to the land of the dead, he is resurrected.
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What Sunny Saw in the Flames by Nnedi Okorafor
Sunny Nwazue lives in Nigeria, but she was born in New York City. Her features are West African, but she’s albino. She’s a terrific athlete, but can’t go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits in. And then she discovers something amazing-she is a “free agent” with latent magical power.
Soon she’s part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But as she’s finding her footing, Sunny and her friends are asked by the magical authorities to help track down a career criminal who knows magic, too.
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Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Jessamy “Jess” Harrison, age eight, is the child of an English father and a Nigerian mother. Possessed of an extraordinary imagination, she has a hard time fitting in at school. It is only when she visits Nigeria for the first time that she makes a friend who understands her: a ragged little girl named TillyTilly. But soon TillyTilly’s visits become more disturbing, until Jess realizes she doesn’t actually know who her friend is at all.
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The Silence of the Wilting Skin by Tlotlo Tsamaase
A railway track cuts a nameless society in two, and the people living on either side are fundamentally different. Every month, a train filled with the already dead arrives to collect those who have recently died, yet only those on the nameless protagonist’s side of the tracks can see it. The Others, living in the District on the Other Side of the City, cannot, and seek to demolish the seemingly useless tracks. This is part of their expansionist real estate project, which will pave over the protagonist’s district and relocate or kill its inhabitants.
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Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
In the ancient city of Bassa, Danso is a clever scholar on the cusp of achieving greatness-except he doesn’t want it. Instead, he prefers to chase forbidden stories about what lies outside the city walls. The Bassai elite claim there is nothing of interest. When Danso stumbles across a warrior wielding magic that shouldn’t exist, he’s put on a collision course with Bassa’s darkest secrets.
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A Spark of White Fire (The Celestial Trilogy, #1) by Sangu Mandanna
Aryan, the eldest princess of the Siren's, is restless. Betrothed to the Merman Prince, she longs for a life filled with love outside of the sea.
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Crown of Olives and Ash by Bongiwe T.
But when Dèmi’s misplaced trust costs her mother’s life, survival gives way to vengeance. She bides her time until the devious Lord Ekwensi grants her the perfect opportunity-kidnap the Aje prince, Jonas, and bargain with his life to save the remaining Oluso. The kidnapping is now a joint mission: to return to the King, help get Lord Ekwensi on the council, and bolster the voice of the Oluso in a system designed to silence them.
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Descendants of The First by Reni K.
The king is dead - and with him, the last thread holding the kingdom together. Deep cracks are forming throughout the kingdom of Nri with whispers of deadly successors lurking beneath the shadows. Despite having the same face, it seems the deepest crack is forming between Naala and Sinai, the reunited twin goddesses, who must put their differences aside as they travel through a broken Nri.
Unbeknownst to the girls, their use of the mystical Ṇdu crystal has awakened mythical beasts and the lost gods, each returning to Nri one by one.
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Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko
For the first time, an Empress Redemptor sits on Aritsar’s throne. To appease the sinister spirits of the dead, Tarisai must now anoint a council of her own, coming into her full power as a Raybearer. She must then descend into the Underworld, a sacrifice to end all future atrocities.
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Tarisai is determined to survive. Or at least, that’s what she tells her increasingly distant circle of friends. Months into her shaky reign as empress, child spirits haunt her, demanding that she pay for past sins of the empire. With the lives of her loved ones on the line, assassination attempts from unknown quarters, and a handsome new stranger she can’t quite trust . . . Tarisai fears the pressure may consume her.
But in this finale to the Raybearer duology, Tarisai must learn whether to die for justice . . .
Set on the fictional continent of Aritsar which has lushly imagined regions that run the gamut of diverse weather patterns and geographies, from the Asiatic mountains of Songland to Swana’s “balmy grasslands”, Raybearer details the journey of the would-be child assassin and half-djinn, Tarisai of Swana, who is charged by her mother with endearing herself to the crown-prince of Aritsar so that she can murder him.
With, “fathomless black eyes,” rich dark skin, high cheekbones, and a coily cloud of black hair, Tarisai is the mirror image of her mother and unknowingly carries the legacy of hatred and betrayal that had her mother banished from the royal court where people seem to know her story but refuse to share it with Tarisai. All of the mystery leads to multiple confrontations where Tarisai must decide if and how she will develop her own path toward personal and public liberation.
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Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor
A woman spots a stunning blue-headed bird at the edge of a Ghanaian village and follows it. Sonokrom is a place that has not changed for hundreds of years; the men and women speak the language of the forest, drink aphrodisiacs with their palm wine and commune with the spirits of their ancestors.
However, the woman’s intrusion and ensuing events lead to an invasion from Accra, the capital city, spearheaded by Kayo; a young forensic pathologist convinced that scientific logic can shatter even the most inexplicable of mysteries. But as events in the village become more and more incomprehensible, Kayo and his sidekick, Constable Garba are drawn into a world where storytelling is more powerful than any scientific explanation.
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Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi
In the walled city of Kos, corrupt mages can magically call forth sin from a sinner in the form of sin-beasts-lethal creatures spawned from feelings of guilt. Taj is the most talented of the aki, young sin-eaters indentured by the mages to slay the sin-beasts. But Taj’s livelihood comes at a terrible cost.
When he kills a sin-beast, a tattoo of the beast appears on his skin while the guilt of committing the sin appears on his mind. When Taj is called to eat a sin of a member of the royal family, he’s suddenly thrust into the center of a dark conspiracy to destroy Kos. Debut author Tochi Onyebuchi delivers an unforgettable series opener that powerfully explores the true meaning of justice and guilt.
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Triangulum by Masande Ntshanga
Triangulum (2019) is a novel about alien abduction, time travel, messages from a supernatural source and visions of the future. It’s also about a schoolgirl growing up in the late 1990s and early 2000s in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, trying to make sense of the continuing influence of apartheid history, as she is simultaneously trying to figure out her sexuality, her family and who she is.
The novel, South African writer Masande Ntshanga’s second, is written in a dry, deadpan register that echoes the protagonist’s blunted affect - seemingly a side effect of her psychiatric medication. As a result of this tone fantastical events are represented in a matter-of-fact way that somehow makes their strangeness and everyday life appear equally alien.
Triangulum’s setting in King William’s Town (now Qonce) and surroundings is unusual not only in science fiction but in South African literature more broadly. This area is also often neglected in the country’s national discourses.
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Rigland by Peter J.
Temple Kodam, a genius mechanic and engineer from the Niger Delta, has built a refuge for his community “in the unlikeliest of places”. After “a storm so great its waters would never recede” he refused orders to flee inland and instead occupied an oil rig. Stripped of all useful material, it is designed to withstand storms at sea.
Temple has made it a cosy home. The story doesn’t avert our eyes from the violence, power relations and precarity of the oil- and climate-ravaged Delta, or from Temple’s own complex backstory.
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It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way by Alistair Mackay
Set in a near-future Cape Town, South African writer Alistair Mackay’s 2022 novel It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way (affectionately abbreviated IDHTBTW) presents the horrors of accelerated climate change through the eyes of three gay protagonists. There’s the environmental activist Luthando, his lover Viwe, and Malcolm, an unwitting accomplice of capitalist exploitation of the natural world.
As ecocide intensifies, the divide between the haves, who can hole up behind the Wall in the air-conditioned Citadel, and the have-nots, who must endure fatally high temperatures and starvation rations, becomes more intense. IDHTBTW warns readers of the disasters that will ensue if we continue on the path of using natural resources irresponsibly.
The success of this form of dystopian writing depends on the elegance and pacing of its delivery. IDHTBTW delivers both elegance and pacing, and supplies a gay love story as well, which is not often found in the genre.
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Avenues by Train by Farai Mudzingwa
Reading Zimbabwean writer Farai Mudzingwa’s Avenues by Train (2023), one cannot help but think of those moments when we find ourselves suspended between stations, neither here nor there, watching the passing scenes through the windows of a carriage that may or may not reach its destination.
Jedza, the protagonist, is convinced that his life is haunted. First, by the guilt of being accidentally responsible for the death of a childhood friend who was run over by a train. Second, by the disappearance of his sister in Harare.
The novel operates at two levels as it traces Jedza’s search for freedom and happiness. On the surface it explores the realities of contemporary Zimbabwe - economic challenges, sex work, drug abuse. Another level deploys the metaphysical as it draws on Shona mythology and spiritualism evoking ngozi (avenging spirits), shapeshifting njuzu (water spirits) and ancestral spirits.
It refuses to be bogged down into categories. One section reads like magical realism, another like fantasy and another like non-fiction, littered with historical details in footnotes. Where it occasionally loses steam is in its grappling with the historical backdrop and the weight of Zimbabwe’s past. But it’s a poignant exploration of the country in prose that’s confident, lyrical and unflinching. Avenues by Train marks an important contribution to Zimbabwean literature.
Other Notable Mentions
- Pet by Akwaeke Emezi
- The Deep by Rivers Solomon, with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes
- Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
- A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow
- Mothersound: The Sauútiverse Anthology edited by Wole Talabi
- The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman
These books showcase the breadth and depth of African fantasy, offering something for every reader. Whether you're seeking epic adventures, social commentary, or explorations of identity, you'll find it within these pages.
What Is The Significance Of Africa In The Color Purple? - Literary Icons
A piece of African-inspired fantasy art.
Themes and Elements in African Fantasy
African fantasy often weaves together elements of mythology, history, and social commentary. Here are some common themes and elements found in the genre:
- Mythical Creatures: Stories are populated with creatures from African folklore.
- Cultural Richness: The stories reflect the diverse cultures and traditions of Africa.
- Social Commentary: Many books tackle issues such as colonialism, identity, and social justice.
- Magical Realism: Blending magical elements with realistic settings and characters.
