Here are four novels that rocked my understanding of the world: all were written by Nobel laureates who are or were African by either birth or ancestry (just a coincidence)…but not everybody in a reading group will love these books; so meetings will be lively and possibly contentious, just as they should be.

Jim Crace is an award-winning English writer. His novels include Quarantine, which was judged Whitbread Novel of 1998, and Harvest, which won the 2015 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the 2013 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999.

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe

For its insider’s view of a nation’s first encounter with colonialism and for its narrative simplicity and depth.

The Conservationist

Nadine Gordimer

For its grace and humanity, the beauty of its expression, and -not least- for one of the most erotic passages in post-war fiction.

The Lives Of Animals

J.M. Coetzee

For its thoughtful and disquieting analysis of our relationship with animals and with meat.

Jazz

Toni Morrison

For its fearlessness.