Blog Posts by Subject: Africa

Hope your school year is off to a great start! Below, you'll find a list of resources which offer background information in a variety of formats about the continent of Africa. NYPL has many wonderful materials on specific communities and countries within Africa — way too many to list here. We hope these highlights are helpful and inspire further exploration. Feedback is greatly appreciated. Feel free to leave comments and suggestions below!

Atlas of Africa (part of 

Sunny is accustomed to being different. She was born in New York City but lives in Nigeria. She has the same features as her West African family, but she is an albino. The people in her community don’t know what to make of her, so they stay away or call her names.

In school, Sunny makes new friends in Orlu and Chichi, who reveal that they have magical powers and suspect that she does too. It turns out that Sunny is a “free agent,” someone who’s powers are not hereditary. Usually, people with these powers are from a magical family and 

Konono No.1's sound is shockingly infectious and amazingly unique. The revolving-member group spent the last few decades playing traditional Bazombo trance music in the capitol city of the Congo: Kinshasa. Equal parts tradition, innovation, and accident, their sound centers on three Likembe (better known as the Mbira, or thumb organ) players, a rhythm section, three singers, and three dancers. Oh, but that is so not all of the story!...

A need to compete with the growing cacophony of the busy 

If you're anything like me, you've been glued to your computer screen for more than a week observing the will of an entire people force a reckoning with its despotic ruler, against all cynical logic that insurrections and revolutions somehow irretrievably belong to ages past. What is the context for this momentuous event that will undoubtedly have repercussions for years to come? 

Branded as "the January 25th Movement," the truth