These are the books that I enjoyed in 2022; or, a recommended reading list.
Released in 2022
Fiction (24)
If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English – Noor Naga
This wonderfully structured love story is set at the time of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011.
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida – Shehan Karunatilaka
Winner of the 2022 Booker Prize, this is a mind-bending and very memorable read, full of ghosts and wartime violence.
Best of Isele Anthology – Ukamaka Olisakwe, Tracy Haught (Eds)
So much good stuff showcased in this anthology.
Sea of Tranquility – Emily St John Mandel
Set on Earth and the Moon, in 1912, 2203 and 2401, this, by the author of Station Eleven, is a very imaginative and thoughtful novel on pandemics and colonisation.
The Colony – Audrey Magee
On 2022’s Booker Prize longlist, this beautifully-written book is set on an island off the coast of Ireland. The main theme is, as you may guess, colonisation, setting a Frenchman against an Englishman.
The Future is Female! Volume Two, the 1970s: More Classic Science Fiction Stories By Women – Lisa Yaszek(Ed.)
This was lovely because I generally hate old sci-fi, except, as it turns out, when it’s written by women. Also, proof that old sci-fi by women exists!
The Displacements – Bruce Holsinger
A refreshing take on migration and climate change, set in the United States. Also some really good storytelling.
On Rotation – Shirlene Obuobi
Possibly my favourite “anti-genre” book by an African writer this year, this was a meet-cute with depth.
Upgrade – Blake Crouch
I’ll read almost any sci-fi Crouch writes. This plays with the possibility of human genomic changes.
Night of the Living Rez – Morgan Talty
A series of linked stories set on a reservation. Both sad and hopeful.
Ion Curtain – Anya Ow
Sci-fi: politics, war, ASI, queerness, diversity. Such meaty world-building in this book, and I’m keen for any sequels. Also, SENTIENT SHIPS!
Wash Day Diaries – Jamila Rowser, Robyn Smith
A heart-warming graphic novel about Black girls and Black hair.
Vagabonds! – Eloghosa Osunde
Mind-bending African SF novel set in Lagos, with gods and their demons, and hapless humans.
Things They Lost – Okwiri Oduor
The story of mothers and daughters, and generational trauma, with magic. Reviews were mixed, but I love Oduor’s expansive prose.
All the Lovers in the Night – Mieko Kawakami
So much sympathy for this character, a lonely woman who attempts to change her life. This was my first Kawakami, and I’m so glad I did.
When We Were Birds – Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
A book set in a Trinidad graveyard, with a young woman who can communicate with the dead.
Easy Beauty – Chloé Cooper Jones
I read quite a few books on body and disability in 2022 (one of my goals), and this first-person account was moving and very real to me.
The Tiger Came to the Mountains – Silvia Moreno-Garcia (from the Trespass Collection)
My first time reading Moreno-Garcia. This is a short and very evocative story: siblings become trapped in a cave, with a tiger and soldiers on the loose.
The Backbone of the World – Stephen Graham Jones (from the Trespass Collection)
A fantastic story about a woman and are-they-really-prairie-dogs facing off.
A Righteous Man – Tochi Onyebuchi (from the Trespass Collection)
A surprisingly deep story about a man’s missionary trip, told in epistolary form.
How High We Go in the Dark – Sequoia Nagamatsu
Very memorable and moving pandemic novel; science-fictional, but deeply character-driven.
Tides – Sara Freeman
A complicated woman as the main character. Beautiful, devastating, elegant, crisp, sparse, perfectly crafted. Just remembered that I want to read this again.
Wahala – Nikki May
A very fun diversion, this is the story of four Nigerian-British friends, with a backstabber in their midst.
Dark Theory – Wick Welker
I loved this for the amazing world Welker built. Robots, peasants, a kind of dystopia/post-apocalypse. This would make such a great film!
Non-fiction (7)
Africa Is Not A Country – Dipo Faloyin
My African book of the year. Essays on map-making for colonials, white saviours, colonial loot in Western museums, How to Write About Africa, etc.
Love and Justice A Journey of Empowerment, Activism and Embracing Black Beauty – Laetitia Ky
Beautiful photobook of Ky’s art, with essays to explain her philosophy and the evolution of her art.
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands – Kate Beaton
Very moving graphic novel of a young woman in a hostile work environment, and on precarity in Canada.
In the Black Fantastic – Ekow Eshun, Kameelah L. Martin, Michelle D. Commander
A visionary book of essays and images, expanding on the In The Black Fantastic exhibition at the Hayward in the UK from June to September 2022. A feast!
The Thorn Puller – Hiromi Ito, Jeffrey Angles (tr)
If tearful laughter were a book. Essays on death, life, mothering, sex, ageing parents, and a complicated relationship with a man (aren’t they all!), with poop and penises. Loved this.
Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires – Douglas Rushkoff
My latest favourite anti-billionaire treatise. They don’t care about us, and we should eat them first when the time comes. Favourite quote:
It’s as if they want to build a car that goes fast enough to escape from its own exhaust.
Painting Happiness – Terry Runyan
I read many art/craft books throughout the year, and this was a favourite. (Also a fun artist to follow on IG.)
Poetry (1)
Time Is a Mother – Ocean Vuong
I surprised myself in 2022 by starting to appreciate contemporary poetry from specific authors. Vuong’s poetry is brutal and urgent.
Older books I read and loved
Fiction (22)
A Season in Rihata – Maryse Conde, Richard Philcox (tr) (1981)
Such a great tale of two brothers, set in a small fictional country in (probably) Africa.
Our Sister Killjoy – Ama Ata Aidoo (1977)
Radical, and timeline-breaking 🙌🏾! Aidoo was 35 when she wrote this. I wish I’d been this powerful at 35.
The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born – Ayi Kwei Armah (1968)
There must have been something in the water in the ’60s and ’70s in Africa, honestly. Particularly in Ghana.
Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation – Octavia E. Butler, Damian Duffy, John Jennings
I could never get into this book, the first of OEB’s books I tried. This adaptation was excellent, and made the book finally penetrable for me.
Harvest of Thorns – Shimmer Chinodya (1989)
It’s hard to decide what my favourite Zim novel is—so much amazing writing—but this could be number one. The story of a young man who goes to, and is transformed by, Zim’s liberation war.
The Trees – Percival Everett (2021)
I’m not sure how Everett made such a terrible subject—lynching—so funny and yet still chilling, but this book was both. 2022 Booker Prize long-listed.
The Vegetarian – Han Kang (2016)
It took me a long time to get round to reading this book, the winner of the 2016 Booker International Prize. A tale of two sisters, it manages to be both emotionally dense and unsettling, and also very readable. I was cheering for the unconventional sister. Great for lovers of literary iction.
Grey Bees – Andrey Kurkov, Boris Dralyuk (2020)
A fun and light book, somehow, although it’s a book about the long-running Ukranian-Russian war. “A man travels with his bees” doesn’t seem like a great premise, but it totally is. Full of heart.
Evening Primrose – Kopano Matlwa (2017)
I’ve seen and heard not-great reviews of Matlwa’s writing, but I really enjoyed this moving book about a young woman losing her moorings.
The Palm-Wine Drinkard – Amos Tutuola (1952)
Unless I’m corrected, I will call this the first African SFF book. Weird and wonderful, and the dialect makes it better. Also cool to read full context (elsewhere) about how Tutuola was self-taught, and how his writing divided opinion.
Ms Ice Sandwich – Mieko Kawakamo (2017)
I really like Kawakami’s quirky style and odd characters. This is cute on first love.
Ammonite – Nicola Griffith (1992)
Took me ages to get into, but once I’d bought into the world-building, this was really engrossing. Imagines a world without men. Reminiscent of UKLG’s The Left Hand of Darkness.
Grief is the Thing with Feathers – Max Porter (2015)
This was so sad that I looked up whether the author’s wife was alive. Beautiful.
I Will Marry When I Want – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Ngũgĩ wa Mirii (1982)
This is actually a play; wish I could see it performed. I laughed and also just felt exasperated at the common threads running through African liberation stories.
An Elegy for Easterly Stories – Petina Gappah (2009)
Gappah is one of my favourite writers, a master of the craft and a formidable thinker. These stories were fun and pointed.
What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky – Lesley Nneka Arimah (2017)
There are authors who have an amazing facility with language, while also managing to be great storytellers. Arimah is one.
Animal Wife – Lara Ehrlich (2020)
This book got me into weird fiction for a period; read lots, and also acquired lots that I hope to read. Girls and women doing witchy things, the strangeness of female bodies, women being free—I love how this genre explores girlhood and womanhood, society’s reactions to female expression, the monstrous feminine.
Dark Tales – Shirley Jackson (2016)
Disturbia. Spooky things happening in suburbia. It’s the idea of Something Bad that’s unsettling in these stories.
Good Citizens Need Not Fear – Maria Reva (2020)
Another of my favourite genres: dark Soviet humour. This book is bitingly funny, and I would (will) read it again.
Fever dream – Samanta Schweblin (2017)
Schweblin’s fiction is unsettling and addictive. I read another in 2022 (Seven Empty Houses) that I didn’t enjoy as much.
The Hearing Trumpet – Leonora Carrington (1974)
Very smart, cleverly revolutionary. The edition I read had an excellent afterword by Olga Tokarczuk that explained the feminist elements really well.
The Crocodile (Food For Thought) – Fyodor Dostoevsky (1865)
I thought this was funny and clever, but not everyone likes it.
Honorable mention
Cosmogramma – Courttia Newland (2017)
Lots of fascinating concepts, and great storytelling. Too many loose ends, though, in the end, and maybe too much of a fascination with craft.
Non-fiction (4)
How We Get Free: Feminism and the Combahee River Collective – Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Ed.) (2017)
Absolutely brilliant review of the impact of the CRC. An education. This will remain an important reference book for me.
Entangled Life – Merlin Sheldrake (2020)
I will look back on this book as the one that started it all, when I’m eating fungus pizza and drinking fungus tea in my fungus pyjamas in my fungus house. Really brilliant book on something that’s all around, under, and in us, and that we never think about.
The Story Of My Life – Joshua Nkomo (1984)
Always amazing to read about the nationalists who founded Zimbabwe, and this is rare for being one of very few books written by one. Really very sad, in the end. Wonderful to read his thoughts, and a great record.
Discourse on Colonialism – Aimé Césaire (1950)
One of the textbooks on Black liberation. Enough said.
Poetry (2)
Night Sky with Exit Wounds – Ocean Vuong (2016)
More Vuong, more of that feeling of being hit in the chest.
Life on Mars – Tracy K. Smith (2011)
Was blown away by the use of language and imagery in this collection. A fave.
Other (3)
Daughters of Africa – Margaret Busby (1992)
It took me over a year to get through this; but if you want a library on Black women’s writing, this is it.
Brilliance of Hope – Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure (2021)
A lovely collection of fiction and non-fiction by young Zimbabwean writers. I did not enjoy all the pieces, but this is a great and important snapshot of Zimbabwean writing now/in the near future.
Report from Planet Midnight – Nalo Hopkinson (2012)
It’s taken me this long to start reading Hopkinson, which is a shame. This, though, was a good place to start, because of the essay here on race in SFF.
Here’s everything I read (in Obsidian):
Harare Review of Books 
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