Like its Heritage Conversations series, Reading Africa offers an opportunity for critical reflections about intellectual productions with regard to the continent of Africa and Africans. Whether for good or ill purposes, Africa is seen by most, including many Africans themselves, as to be the poorest among the continents of the world. This unsavory depiction of Africa as, in Conrad’s voice, “the dark continent,” seems to have seamed through layers of consciousness into near perpetuity, forming the congealed ideology that brings down the cudgel of coloniality.

Through the generous donations and support of co-sponsors, a few registered participants will receive all the assigned texts to be read during any session. Participants may use the QR code or link below to complete their registration.

1. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899)

2. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria, 1958)

3. King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard (1885)

4. Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux (2002)

5. White Man’s Burden by Rudyard Kipling (1899, poem)

6. Weep Not, Child by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (Kenya, 1964)

7. So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ (Senegal, 1979)

8. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria, 2013)

9. The Souls of Black Folk by William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (USA1903)

10. Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (Part of the African Systems of Thought Series), by Valentin-Yves Mudimbe

11. Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, Wole Soyinka (2021)

12. The Road to the Country: A Novel by Chigozie Obioma (2024)