Popular Equatorial Guinea Books

14+ [Hand Picked] Popular Books On Equatorial Guinea

4.1/5

By Night the Mountain Burns by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel , Jethro Soutar (Translator)

By Night The Mountain Burns recounts the narrator’s childhood on a remote island off the West African coast, living with his mysterious grandfather, several mothers and no fathers. We learn of a dark chapter in the island’s history: a bush fire destroys the crops, then hundreds perish in a cholera outbreak. Superstition dominates: now the islanders must sacrifice their pos By Night The Mountain Burns recounts the narrator’s childhood on a remote island off the West African coast, living with his mysterious grandfather, several mothers and no fathers. We learn of a dark chapter in the island’s history: a bush fire destroys the crops, then hundreds perish in a cholera outbreak. Superstition dominates: now the islanders must sacrifice their possessions to the enraged ocean god. What of their lives will they manage to save? Whitmanesque in its lyrical evocation of the island, Ávila Laurel’s writing builds quietly, through the oral rhythms of traditional storytelling, into gripping drama worthy of an Achebe or a García Márquez.

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4.4/5

The Informationist by Taylor Stevens

"Vanessa Michael Munroe deals in information--expensive information--working for corporations, heads of state, private clients, and anyone else who can pay for her unique brand of expertise. Born to missionary parents in lawless central Africa, Munroe took up with an infamous gunrunner and his mercenary crew when she was just fourteen. As his protégé, she earned the respec "Vanessa Michael Munroe deals in information--expensive information--working for corporations, heads of state, private clients, and anyone else who can pay for her unique brand of expertise. Born to missionary parents in lawless central Africa, Munroe took up with an infamous gunrunner and his mercenary crew when she was just fourteen. As his protégé, she earned the respect of the jungle's most dangerous men, cultivating her own reputation for years until something sent her running. After almost a decade building a new life and lucrative career from her home base in Dallas, she's never looked back. Until now."

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4.3/5

Shadows of Your Black Memory by Donato Ndongo , Michael Ugarte (Translation)

Set during the last years of Spanish rule in Equatorial Guinea, Shadows of Your Black Memory presents the voice of a young African man reflecting on his childhood. Through the idealistic eyes of the nameless protagonist, Donato Ndongo portrays the cultural conflicts between Africa and Spain, ancestral worship competing with Catholicism, and tradition giving way to modernit Set during the last years of Spanish rule in Equatorial Guinea, Shadows of Your Black Memory presents the voice of a young African man reflecting on his childhood. Through the idealistic eyes of the nameless protagonist, Donato Ndongo portrays the cultural conflicts between Africa and Spain, ancestral worship competing with Catholicism, and tradition giving way to modernity. The backdrop of a nation moving toward a troubled independence parallels the young man’s internal struggle to define his own identity. In this bildungsroman, Donato Ndongo masterfully exposes the cultural fissures of his native land. “Spanish Guinea” is a heated, sensual landscape with exotic animals and trees, ancient rituals, ghosts, saints, and sinners. We come to know the narrator’s extended family, the people of his village, merchants, sorcerers, and Catholic priests; we see them critically at times, even humorously, yet always with compassion and a magical dignity. Michael Ugarte’s sensitive translation captures the spirit of the original Spanish prose and makes Ndongo’s powerful, gripping tale available to English-speaking readers for the first time.

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3.8/5

Tropical Gangsters: One Man's Experience with Development and Decadence in Deepest Africa by Robert Klitgaard

Selected as one of the six best nonfiction books of 1990 by the editors f the New York Times Book Review, this is a compelling and entertaining account of the author's two-and-a-half year adventure in Equatorial Guinea, and his efforts to get this small bankrupt African nation on the path of structural development.

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4.2/5

La Bastarda by Trifonia Melibea Obono

La protagonista, Okomo, una adolescente de etnia fang, atrapada en un sistema de valores que no le permite desarrollar su personalidad, se anima a emprender la búsqueda de su progenitor, cuya identidad le ocultan sus mayores. El viaje la llevará a recorrer su país, en el que se encontrará con las secuelas del colonialismo aún vigentes. En su camino, conocerá a otros person La protagonista, Okomo, una adolescente de etnia fang, atrapada en un sistema de valores que no le permite desarrollar su personalidad, se anima a emprender la búsqueda de su progenitor, cuya identidad le ocultan sus mayores. El viaje la llevará a recorrer su país, en el que se encontrará con las secuelas del colonialismo aún vigentes. En su camino, conocerá a otros personajes que, como ella, se rebelan contra las convenciones sociales y con quienes vivirá experiencias que la transformarán para siempre.La obra, que contiene información sociológica y antropológica de primera mano, es un relato valiente y directo sobre el conflicto entre la estructura familiar y las creencias ancestrales de los fang y los deseos de libertad de las nuevas generaciones en el África subsahariana.

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4.8/5

The Gurugu Pledge by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel , Jethro Soutar (Translation)

Praise for By Night the Mountain Burns: "A delightfully candid, deceptively sober narrative voice." —Helen Oyeyemi, author of What is Not Yours is Not Yours "A poignant novel by one of Equatorial Guinea's most celebrated authors . . . fascinating." —Publishers Weekly "Survival, hope and despair wrestle in this surprising work by Equatorial Guinea's leading author." —Financial Praise for By Night the Mountain Burns: "A delightfully candid, deceptively sober narrative voice." —Helen Oyeyemi, author of What is Not Yours is Not Yours "A poignant novel by one of Equatorial Guinea's most celebrated authors . . . fascinating." —Publishers Weekly "Survival, hope and despair wrestle in this surprising work by Equatorial Guinea's leading author." —Financial Times On Mount Gurugu, overlooking the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the North African coast, desperate migrants gather before attempting to scale the city's walls and gain asylum on European soil. Inspired by firsthand accounts, Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel has written an urgent novel, by turns funny and sad, bringing a distinctly African perspective to a major issue of our time. Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel was born in 1966 in Equatorial Guinea. The Gurugu Pledge is his second novel, and follows his 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize-shortlisted debut By Night The Mountain Burns, which was based on his memories of growing up on the remote island of Annobón. He made headlines in 2011 by embarking on a hunger strike, in an anti-government protest. He now lives exiled in Barcelona. Jethro Soutar translates from Spanish and Portuguese. He has translated Argentinian and Brazilian crime novels, written two nonfiction books of his own, and recently co-edited The Football Crónicas, a collection of football writing from Latin America. He divides his time between London and Lisbon.

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4.7/5

Dictatorland: The Men Who Stole Africa by Paul Kenyon

The dictator who grew so rich on his country's cocoa crop that he built a 35-storey-high basilica in the jungles of the Ivory Coast. The austere, incorruptible leader who has shut Eritrea off from the world in a permanent state of war and conscripted every adult into the armed forces. In Equatorial Guinea, the paranoid despot who thought Hitler was the saviour of Africa an The dictator who grew so rich on his country's cocoa crop that he built a 35-storey-high basilica in the jungles of the Ivory Coast. The austere, incorruptible leader who has shut Eritrea off from the world in a permanent state of war and conscripted every adult into the armed forces. In Equatorial Guinea, the paranoid despot who thought Hitler was the saviour of Africa and waged a relentless campaign of terror against his own people. The Libyan army officer who authored a new work of political philosophy, The Green Book, and lived in a tent with a harem of female soldiers, running his country like a mafia family business. And behind these almost incredible stories of fantastic violence and excess lie the dark secrets of Western greed and complicity, the insatiable taste for chocolate, oil, diamonds and gold that has encouraged dictators to rule with an iron hand, siphoning off their share of the action into mansions in Paris and banks in Zurich and keeping their people in dire poverty.

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4.3/5

Palmeras en la nieve by Luz Gabás

Es 1953 y Kilian abandona la nieve de la montaña oscense para iniciar junto a su hermano, Jacobo, el viaje de ida hacia una tierra desconocida, lejana y exótica, la isla de Fernando Poo. En las entrañas de este territorio exuberante y seductor, le espera su padre, un veterano de la finca Sampaka, el lugar donde se cultiva y tuesta uno de los mejores cacaos del mundo. En esa Es 1953 y Kilian abandona la nieve de la montaña oscense para iniciar junto a su hermano, Jacobo, el viaje de ida hacia una tierra desconocida, lejana y exótica, la isla de Fernando Poo. En las entrañas de este territorio exuberante y seductor, le espera su padre, un veterano de la finca Sampaka, el lugar donde se cultiva y tuesta uno de los mejores cacaos del mundo. En esa tierra eternamente verde, cálida y voluptuosa, los jóvenes hermanos descubren la ligereza de la vida social de la colonia en comparación con una España encorsetada y gris; comparten el duro trabajo necesario para conseguir el cacao perfecto de la finca Sampaka; aprenden las diferencias y similitudes culturales entre coloniales y autóctonos; y conocen el significado de la amistad, la pasión, el amor y el odio. Pero uno de ellos cruzará una línea prohibida e invisible y se enamorará perdidamente de una nativa. Su amor por ella, enmarcado en unas complejas circunstancias históricas, y el especial vínculo que se crea entre el colono y los oriundos de la isla transformarán la relación de los hermanos, cambiarán el curso de sus vidas y serán el origen de un secreto cuyas consecuencias alcanzarán el presente. En el año 2003, Clarence, hija y sobrina de ese par de hermanos, llevada por la curiosidad del que desea conocer sus orígenes, se zambulle en el ruinoso pasado que habitaron Kilian y Jacobo y descubre los hilos polvorientos de ese secreto que finalmente será desentrañado.

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5/5

Ekomo by María Nsue Angüe

Ekomo es una novela en la que se entrelaza una narración realista con elementos mágicos. Encontramos frecuentes repeticiones poéticas, imágenes sugerentes, adjetivos ilimitados, una estructura envolvente y la magia. En la novela están presentes el vudú, el tótem, los acontecimientos inexplicables, los auillidos de los perros como “presagios de fuerzas extrañas”, “las ánima Ekomo es una novela en la que se entrelaza una narración realista con elementos mágicos. Encontramos frecuentes repeticiones poéticas, imágenes sugerentes, adjetivos ilimitados, una estructura envolvente y la magia. En la novela están presentes el vudú, el tótem, los acontecimientos inexplicables, los auillidos de los perros como “presagios de fuerzas extrañas”, “las ánimas en pugna”, las apariciones, los hechizos, los fantasmas, “los hombres de hierbas”, los brujos, los curanderos y la historia que empieza a cuajarse en “aquella noche tormentosa de embrujos”. Es una preciosa muestra de prosa poética con jaculatorias y repeticiones épicas, que se suceden dando ritmo de estrofa. La novela narra un doble viaje: el del presente real y duro, el del largo camino por el bosque en el que el “yo” narrador es una mujer que se describe a sí misma; y el camino de sus pensamientos, el interno que, como en bustrófedon ondulante va y vuelve del pasado al presente y del presente al pasado, para acabar en llanto y grito de una mujer solitaria que quiere compartir su desdicha con todas las mujeres: “Llora, llora mujer tu desgracia... Que lloren todas las mujeres juntas. Por cualquier motivo. ¿Por qué no han de llorar las mujeres, si sus vidas no son sino muertes? ¿Quién dará el grito de esta rebelión?”

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4.2/5

Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono , John Reed (Translator)

Toundi Ondoua, the rural African protagonist of Houseboy, encounters a world of prisms that cast beautiful but unobtainable glimmers, especially for a black youth in colonial Cameroon. Houseboy, written in the form of Toundi's captivating diary and translated from the original French, discloses his awe of the white world and a web of unpredictable experiences. Early on, he Toundi Ondoua, the rural African protagonist of Houseboy, encounters a world of prisms that cast beautiful but unobtainable glimmers, especially for a black youth in colonial Cameroon. Houseboy, written in the form of Toundi's captivating diary and translated from the original French, discloses his awe of the white world and a web of unpredictable experiences. Early on, he escapes his father's angry blows by seeking asylum with his benefactor, the local European priest who meets an untimely death. Toundi then becomes "the Chief European's 'boy'--the dog of the King." Toundi's attempt to fulfill a dream of advancement and improvement opens his eyes to troubling realities. Gradually, preconceptions of the Europeans come crashing down on him as he struggles with his identity, his place in society, and the changing culture.

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3.8/5

The Wonga Coup: Guns, Thugs and a Ruthless Determination to Create Mayhem in an Oil-Rich Corner of Africa by Adam Roberts

Equatorial Guinea is a tiny country roughly the size of the state of Maryland. Humid, jungle covered, and rife with unpleasant diseases, natives call it Devil Island. Its president in 2004, Obiang Nguema, had been accused of cannibalism, belief in witchcraft, mass murder, billiondollar corruption, and general rule by terror. With so little to recommend it, why in March 200 Equatorial Guinea is a tiny country roughly the size of the state of Maryland. Humid, jungle covered, and rife with unpleasant diseases, natives call it Devil Island. Its president in 2004, Obiang Nguema, had been accused of cannibalism, belief in witchcraft, mass murder, billiondollar corruption, and general rule by terror. With so little to recommend it, why in March 2004 was Equatorial Guinea the target of a group of salty British, South African and Zimbabwean mercenaries, travelling on an American-registered ex-National Guard plane specially adapted for military purposes, that was originally flown to Africa by American pilots? The real motive lay deep below the ocean floor: oil. In The Dogs of War, Frederick Forsyth effectively described an attempt by mercenaries to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea -- in 1972. And the chain of events surrounding the night of March 7, 2004, is a rare case of life imitating art--or, at least, life imitating a 1970s thriller--in almost uncanny detail. With a cast of characters worthy of a remake of Wild Geese and a plot as mazy as it was unlikely, The Wonga Coup is a tale of venality, overarching vanity and greed whose example speaks to the problems of the entire African continent.

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4.9/5

Anywhere But Here by Peter Pinney

Peter Pinney's latest record of his travels is as lively, unconventional, and a using as ever. Still the traveller without visas and without baggage, and usually without money, he wanders across Africa from Mozambique to the Sahara - sometimes alone, sometimes with raffish companions picked up on the way, but mostly with Anna, the gay and resourceful Dutch girl was was his Peter Pinney's latest record of his travels is as lively, unconventional, and a using as ever. Still the traveller without visas and without baggage, and usually without money, he wanders across Africa from Mozambique to the Sahara - sometimes alone, sometimes with raffish companions picked up on the way, but mostly with Anna, the gay and resourceful Dutch girl was was his companion in earlier adventures.

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4.7/5

Zanzibar to Timbuktu by Theodore Dalrymple

'Africans, I discovered, have a unique talent for finding happiness where others would find only misery.' While working in Tanzania in the 1980s, British doctor Theodore Dalrymple hatched a plan to cross Africa using only public transport. Avoiding planes, his journey took him by bus, lorry, train, boat and canoe. Along the way he encountered corruption, poverty and oppres 'Africans, I discovered, have a unique talent for finding happiness where others would find only misery.' While working in Tanzania in the 1980s, British doctor Theodore Dalrymple hatched a plan to cross Africa using only public transport. Avoiding planes, his journey took him by bus, lorry, train, boat and canoe. Along the way he encountered corruption, poverty and oppression as well as pragmatic and cheerful travelling companions and the result is this humorous, beautifully-written and sharply-observed travelogue. Theodore Dalrymple is the author of many books including: 'If Symptoms Persist', 'Second Opinion' and 'The Policeman and the Brothel'.

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4.9/5

Tropical Gangsters II: Adventures in Development in the World's Poorest Places by Robert Klitgaard

Tropical Gangsters was named one of the “Books of the Century” by the New York Times. This sequel again takes you beyond the slogans and ideologies of international development to the complexities, absurdities, and possibilities of some of the poorest places on the planet. If Tropical Gangsters was like a non-fiction novel, Tropical Gangsters II is a set of non-fiction sho Tropical Gangsters was named one of the “Books of the Century” by the New York Times. This sequel again takes you beyond the slogans and ideologies of international development to the complexities, absurdities, and possibilities of some of the poorest places on the planet. If Tropical Gangsters was like a non-fiction novel, Tropical Gangsters II is a set of non-fiction short stories. Stories about corrupt states and cynical cultures, but also about idealism and practical choices that matter. Stories that abound in surprising dialogue, remarkable characters, and beautiful descriptions of locales as diverse as Bolivia, Equatorial Guinea, Haiti, Nicaragua, and South Sudan. Like its predecessor, Tropical Gangsters II will appear on college reading lists, in international training programs, and on the bookshelves of readers who love engaging words and exotic places.

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