As the holiday season approaches, with Christmas in the air, it draws us closer to warm stories and tales of times past. During the holidays, we often tuck in with a lovely book, diving into an ocean of vast possibilities. 

Besides your cliche holiday books, being at home gives one the opportunity to catch up on their reading list. There are so many books out there, waiting to be experienced by you. I call it an experience, because flipping through the pages of a book is like opening the layers to another world. You could say books are the wardrobe to Narnia. 

Here at Hot Coffee Books, we are passionate about reading, especially stories written by African writers. There is a creativity wave in the African continent, shaped and built by experiences, culture, lifestyles and so much more. African authors usually season their stories with words that paint vivid images in your mind. Each sentence takes you into the author’s imagination and you can almost feel yourself under the scorching heat. 

This Christmas, we want YOU to broaden your bookshelf and your mind! We’re suggesting 5 incredible stories, written by African storytellers and authors, and we promise that if you tuck in with your hot cocoa and any one of these books, you surely won’t feel any blues. It’s been a heavy year for us all, globally, and we all deserve an escape. Let books be your escape. Travel into the world of the unknown with every story you read. 

5 Books You Should Read This Holiday: 

1. The Death of Vivek Oji – By Akwaeke Emezi 

Akwaeke Emezi is an lgbo and Tamil writer and video artist, best known for their 2018 debut novel Freshwater.

2. We are all birds of Uganda – Hafsa Zayya

Hafsa Zayyan is a writer and dispute resolution lawyer based in London. She won the inaugural #Merky Books New Writers’ Prize in 2019. We Are All Birds of Uganda is her debut novel, inspired by the mixed background from which she hails

3. The Orchid Protocol – Onoche Emeka Onyekwena

Emeka Onochie is a Nigerian and an On Air Personality . He is the Author of The Orchid Protocol. He is first the runner up of the Dusty ManuscriptWriting Competition (2018).

4. Zikora – Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is a Nigerian author, whose work became vastly publicised after the book Purple Hibiscus.

5. Thirteen Months of Sunrise – Rania Mamoun

Rania Ali Musa Mamoun is a Sudanese journalist, novelist and fiction writer. She was born in the city of Wad Medani in east-central Sudan, and was educated at the University of Gezira. As a journalist, she is involved in both print media and television.

Why don’t you dive into the painful and beautiful stories written by these exceptional writers this holiday season. There are so many authors around the world, and sometimes you just need someone to recommend the right book to you!

Here at HCB, we want to also encourage you to be a part of our projects! If you are an African storyteller who writes any genre of books, you should definitely contact us and we can create magic together! There is so much to be mined in the minds of our writers, and we want to help them create platforms that can give them digital visibility and attention, in the right direction! 

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