Memoir

Memoir of the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, chronicling her founding of the Green Belt Movement and fight for democracy in Kenya.

Memoir of the author's Tutsi family's persecution leading up to the 1994 genocide, when 37 of her family members were killed.

Lorde's account of her breast cancer diagnosis and mastectomy, politicizing the illness.

Memoir combining cricket, colonial politics, and Caribbean identity; 'What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?'

Hartman's journey to Ghana tracing the slave route and grappling with African-American identity.

Memoir about five young Black men from Ward's Mississippi community who died in five years.

Mandela's private journals, letters, and notes revealing his inner thoughts during struggle.

Soyinka's luminous memoir of childhood in Abeokuta, Nigeria, capturing the world of a Yoruba parsonage in colonial times, including his mother's tax-resistance protests.

Saro-Wiwa's account of his detention by the Nigerian military government and his campaign for Ogoni rights against Shell's environmental destruction in the Niger Delta.

Wainaina's memoir of growing up in Kenya, finding his voice as a writer, and the country's transformation. Lyrical, restless, and formally inventive — as much a portrait of post-colonial African identity as autobiography.

Lorde's 'biomythography' of growing up Black, female, and queer in 1950s New York, through her relationships with women, her political awakening, and the Caribbean inheritance of her mother.

Laymon writes a letter to his mother about the violence of his childhood in Mississippi, his body, gambling, food, and the ways Black families carry America's weight. One of the most honest memoirs in American literature.

Beah's account of being conscripted as a child soldier in Sierra Leone's civil war at age 12, his rehabilitation, and his life in New York. One of the most widely read African memoirs.

Maathai's memoir of founding the Green Belt Movement — which planted over 50 million trees across Africa — her years of persecution under Moi, imprisonment, and the Nobel Peace Prize she received in 2004.