Books and films to arrive in Africa prepared

A good book is no substitute for the journey, but it changes the way you look. This list is deliberately short: it mixes African and European perspectives, classics and more recent works, all available in English.

To read

The Shadow of the Sun, by Ryszard Kapuściński. The Polish reporter recounts decades of Africa experienced at close quarters: it is not a guidebook, but the book that more than any other teaches you not to simplify.

Paradise, by Abdulrazak Gurnah. The Zanzibar-born writer and Nobel laureate in literature portrays the coast and interior of East Africa as the colonisers arrive, through the eyes of a boy.

Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe. It is set in Nigeria, far from the parks, but it is one of the most widely read African novels in the world and helps you understand what colonialism meant for those who endured it.

A Grain of Wheat, by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. Kenya in the years of independence, told by one of its most important writers.

Out of Africa, by Karen Blixen. The classic account of life on a farm at the foot of the Ngong Hills, near Nairobi. It should be read knowing that it is the view of a European settler.

Green Hills of Africa, by Ernest Hemingway. The story of a hunting safari in what is now Tanzania: a document of its time, useful also for measuring how much the way we look at animals has changed.

To watch

Out of Africa, the film based on Blixen’s book, with its images of Kenya. Gorillas in the Mist, on the life of Dian Fossey and her fight for the mountain gorillas of Rwanda. My Octopus Teacher, a documentary filmed along the coast of South Africa, for those who love nature told with patience.

To listen to

Before you leave, it is worth seeking out taarab, the music of the coast and Zanzibar, and Kenyan benga: two different ways of hearing East Africa before you see it.