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Book Review and Reflections: Mukwahepo: Woman, Soldier, Mother by Ellen Ndeshi Namhila
Reading Time: 4 minutesYear of Publication: 2013Genre: Autobiography Introduction Where do you begin when you have spent twenty-five years in exile, returning to a newly independent country where everything you once knew has changed or been taken away? This was the question that lingered with me throughout the final chapters of Mukwahepo. Her story stirred up a flurry of emotions—gratitude, grief, pride, frustration, admiration—and yet it is the last few chapters that truly unsettled me. They have moved me to tears, and I know this book will stay with me. There is something inexplicably beautiful, almost divine, about reading the life story of someone from your own place. I was…
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Love Through African Women’s Writing
Reading Time: 6 minutesIn 2025, as I read widely across books by African women, I found myself drawn to recurring themes. One of these was romantic love. Romance is not a category I would ordinarily gravitate towards, but as I began reading more books by African women, I quickly realised that these are not romance novels – not in the westernised sense at least. They are, however, stories about love. Just not the fairy-tale, fluffy kind. This is love as lived, negotiated, endured, questioned, and often undone. Love that stretches across time, circumstance, and consequence. Love that transcends. These are the kinds of stories that make you pause and ask:…
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Book Review and Reflection Changes: A Love Story by Ama Ata Aidoo
Reading Time: 4 minutesYear of publication: 1991Genre: RomanceCountry: Ghana Introduction Changes: A Love Story is a classical African love story written by a classical African writer. As the title says, it tells a narrative of lives in flux – changing lives, especially the life of the protagonist, Esi. Like many African love stories, it does not rely on fantasy or grand romance but focuses on people navigating everyday life, relationships, and difficult situations. Ama Ata Aidoo wrote about family, marriage, friendship, as well as love, responsibility, and desire. Layers is a theme I am coming to notice in African love stories – so many layers and not much of the…
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Book Review and Reflection: A period is not a full stop: A woman’s journey with endometriosis by Olambimpe Fapohunda-Dube
Reading Time: 3 minutesYear of Publication: 2022 Genre: MemoirCountry: Nigeria About the Book In this short and powerful memoir, Olabimpe (Bimpe) Fapohunda-Dube narrates her lifelong struggle with Endometriosis. From her very first period at 13, she experienced excruciating, debilitating pain that halted her life in its tracks every single month. She takes us through the heartbreaking journey of navigating the healthcare system, not being believed, being told it was “normal,” and being prescribed endless pain medication and treatments that never addressed the real cause. Being a woman and a mother to a girl, this one broke my heart. I cannot even imagine my daughter going through this. I have had…
- African American Literature, African American Writers, Book Reviews, Memoirs & Biographies, Non-Fiction, Women of African Descent writers
Book Review and Reflection of Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine by Uché Blackstock, MD
Reading Time: 4 minutesYear of publication: 2025 Genre: Autobiography Country: United States Introduction Legacy by Dr Uché Blackstock is a heartfelt and courageous memoir that explores her life, family, and community while highlighting the ongoing health inequities that disproportionately affect Black communities. She pays loving homage to her mother, “the original Dr Blackstock,” and writes about her with so much tenderness, admiration, and appreciation. Her mother worked as a doctor, caring for her community, and passed the baton to her daughters, who also became doctors. As an African woman living in England and now Scotland, I had many moments of recognition while reading this. I am often in spaces where…
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Review and Reflection of Letter to My Daughter by Dr. Maya Angelou
Reading Time: 2 minutesGenre: Semi-autobiographicalYear of Publication: 2008Country: United StatesBuy the book here Introduction Letter to My Daughter was an absolutely beautiful read. I actually bought it together with Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, as I thought it was a book about raising girl children – I do not usually read book blurbs before getting into them. However, I quickly realised that the book was not at all about raising girls; it was more for me, as if Maya Angelou were speaking directly to me. In her preface, Maya explains that although she never had a biological daughter, she wrote this book for all…
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Book Review and Reflection: We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan
Reading Time: 3 minutesYear of Publication: 2021Genre: Fiction – Contemporary, Historical, MultigenerationalCountry: United Kingdom/Uganda (author of Nigerian–Pakistani heritage) Buy Book Here Introduction We Are All Birds of Uganda is Hafsa Zayyan’s debut novel, and it explores themes of migration, belonging, race, identity, and love across two generations and races. Set between London and Uganda, it captures the intertwined experiences of an Indian-Ugandan family and their descendants, addressing questions of home, identity, belonging, colonialism and postcoloniality. Through deeply personal and reflective storytelling, We Are All Birds of Uganda examines how histories of displacement and racism continue to shape contemporary lives. The novel is part historical fiction, part modern-day exploration of identity…
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Book Review and Reflection – Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery by bell hooks
Reading Time: 10 minutesYear of publication: 1993Genre: Nonfiction – self-help; Black feminist thought/essaysCountry: United States Introduction This book is the self-help book I never knew I needed. As a genre, I don’t tend to read self-help books, but I read this book for an article I was writing. In the end, I was glad I did, because this book was for me too. Much of the time, it felt like bell hooks was addressing me personally, either speaking about my childhood, my work life, and my life as a mother. I loved how she wrote that choosing wellness is a political act, mainly because I am emerging from a long…
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Book Review and Reflection of How to Say Babylon – A Jamaican memoir by Safiya Sinclair
Reading Time: 5 minutesDate of publication: 2023Country: JamaicaGenre: Autobiography Click here to get the book Introduction How To Say Babylon is my second Caribbean-authored book this year, and I have learned a lot about Rastafarianism and Jamaica. I always wondered about the significance of former Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie to Rastafarians but never took the time to research it, and this book brought much-needed clarity. The first thing I thought when I started reading How To Say Babylon was how poetic Safiya’s writing was. I found out later in the book that she indeed is a poet, a very successful one. She uses her gift of poetry to tell her…
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Book Review and Reflection: Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi
Reading Time: 4 minutesPublished: 1975Genre: FictionCountry: Egypt Buy the book here Introduction Good writing is timeless, and Woman at Point Zero proves exactly that. I’ve often seen this book recommended in reading circles focused on African women writers, but I deliberately avoided captions and reviews; I prefer to go into books completely blind. I wasn’t prepared for what I encountered in this novel. The title is telling, yet I still wasn’t expecting how deeply the protagonist’s journey would take me. Firdaus, the woman at the centre of this narrative, truly finds herself at “point zero” multiple times throughout the book. Summary of the Book The novel follows the life story…
