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The 2013 Winners are In!



Daunt Books Children's Short Story Competition 2013

Africa

• North Africa
• West Africa
• East Africa
• Central Africa
• Southern Africa

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  The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

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  The year is 1959 and Nathan Price, a fanatical Baptist from southern America, uproots his wife and four daughters by moving to the Belgian Congo. Although weaker in the later chapters, once you get over the slightly curious, occasionally annoying, but ultimately rewarding technique of using four different voices to tell the story, this is a passionate and powerful family saga with exquisitely drawn characters as well as an informative political history.

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  Djibouti by Elmore Leonard

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  The indomitable, inimitable Elmore Leonard is a master of exhilarating and offbeat thrillers. In Djibouti, renegade film-maker Dara Barr and her 6ft 6in assistant, Xavier LeBo, take to the high seas in search of modern-day pirates and a tanker full of explosives bound for the USA. As always, Leonard captures the essence of his setting: the smell of salt air; the state of African roads; the magnificent squalor of the pirate lifestyle.

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  Collected African Stories by Doris Lessing

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  A collection of refreshingly perceptive short stories from Doris Lessing, described by the author as 'tales about white people, sometimes about black people, living in a landscape that not so very long ago was settled by black tribes, living in complex societies that the white people are only just beginning to study, let alone understand.'

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  The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing

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  Doris Lessing's first novel about Dick Turner, a white South African farmer and his wife, Mary. Mary is a city girl who, in her loneliness and fear, turns to their cook Moses for friendship and support. A powerful novel of gripping intensity exploring issues of prejudice and colonialism.

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  Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

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  Booker winner from Penelope Lively, this novel opens as a beautiful writer, Claudia Hampton lies dying in hospital. She decides to tell the story of her life through memories, flash backs and a cacophony of different voices from her past. The story swirls and collects around her time as a war correspondent in the Egyptian desert and her affair with Tom, a British tank officer and the love of her life. This is a delicate, tragic novel about love and loss.

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  African Psycho by Alain Mabanckou

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  Gregoire Nakobomayo wants to kill his girlfriend, but in order to prepare himself he embarks on lengthy conversations with the infamous, unfortunately dead, serial killer Angoualima. Amusing, refreshing satire on consumerism, similar in nature to Bret Easton Ellis' novel of the same name but set in the Congo.

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  Palace of Desire by Naguib Mahfouz

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  The second novel in Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy follows Ahmad Al Jawad as his family suffers from the pressures of widening societal mores and the introduction of foreign temptation.

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  Sugar Street by Naguib Mahfouz

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  The final act in Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy sees the Al Jawad family lose their business and way of life as the new Egyptian republic emerges.

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  Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz

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  The first novel in Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy introduces shopkeeper Ahmad Al Jawad and his family. Set in the 1920s Mahfouz uses their story to explore the rising political and cultural unrest in his beloved country. This exquisitely written novel is the fate of a nation played out in a deeply human context.

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  The Levant Trilogy by Olivia Manning

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  Olivia Manning's sequel to The Balkan Trilogy, this novel follows communist lecturer Guy Pringle and his wife Harriet as they flee war torn Europe to the presumed safety of North Africa. Facing isolation and their own personal difficulties, it is not long before the conflict is once again on their doorstep. Said to be based on the time spent by Manning and her husband in Cairo, Anthony Burgess described this novel as "The finest fictional record of the war produced by a British writer."

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  Anatomy of a Disappearance by Hisham Matar

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  In 1990, Hisham Matar's father was kidnapped by agents of the Libyan Government and never seen again. In his new novel, Matar considers the effects of such a loss upon those that remain. His protagonist, the adolescent Nuri, is dealing with the sudden death of his mother when he encounters a beautiful young woman called Mona, who becomes the object of his all-consuming fantasies. When Mona falls in love with and marries his father, however, Nuri begins to wish that his father would simply disappear; a wish that he will soon regret.

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  In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar

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  Confused and afraid, nine year-old Suleiman describes the events which shatter his peaceful family life. A Booker shortlisted novel which gives a fascinating insight into the political troubles in Libya at the end of the 1970s.

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  Children of the Revolution by Dinaw Mengestu

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  A first rate novel - it justly won the Guardian First Novel award -set amongst the Ethiopian diaspora of Washington DC. Strongly plotted and moving, it explores the immigrant experience in the U.S. but has a strong Ethiopian flavour. Recommended.

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  The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels

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  Anne Michaels' poetic novel is set in Egypt in 1964, during the reconstruction of the temple at Abu Simbel over the Aswan Dam. As thousands lose their homes in the ensuing deluge, engineer Avery and his new wife Jean suffer their own terrible loss. Written in beautiful, lyrical prose this is a finely crafted novel of loss and hope.

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  The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

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  A breathtaking novel, well worth a read even if you've seen the film. Ondaatje's descriptions of both the Tuscan and desert landscape are achingly beautiful, and his creation of distinct, genuine characters, each haunted by the war and their past, is utterly absorbing.

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  The Explosion of the Radiator Hose by Jean Rolin

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  While transporting a car from France to the Congo the author is exposed to a wide array of the beauties and dangers of his surroundings. This intriguing, fragmented story is part travelogue, part fiction.

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  The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery

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  A pilot forced to land in the Sahara Desert enounters an extraordinary little prince. As the prince describes his journey across the planets in search of friendship, the pilot begins to understand value of open-mindedness and the spirit of adventure. This beautifully illustrated paperback is a timeless classic.

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  Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

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  This is Mustafa's strange intriguing story, told to a shadowy narrator, about how he was revered and destroyed by Western society while living in London during the First World War. He enacts a terrible revenge but the consequences of his action will continue to haunt their Sudanese village and all their lives.

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  Three Weeks in December by Audrey Schulman

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  Another memorable novel published by Europa Editions, which confronts the struggle between progress and preservation. In 1889, a young engineer leaves a small town in Maine to oversee the construction of a railroad across East Africa. Wracked with malaria and plagued by fear of the two lions that are killing his men, he finds solace in the company of an African man. In 2000, an American travels to Rwanda in search of a rare vine that could save lives. Her peaceful existence in the mountains is shattered by a violent rebel group from nearby Congo.

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  Red Dust by Gillian Slovo

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  This is the story of three people brought together in a small, rural South African town: a lawyer, a criminal and a victim. A fast-paced novel which explores the contradictions of a contemporary South Africa; a country which must look forward to build a hopeful future and yet needs to find retribution for the past.

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  The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

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  This is the first of Alexander McCall Smith's hugely successful Precious Ramotswe mysteries. This novel tells of the founding of the agency and of how Precious, Botswana's only female detective, begins her fight for truth and justice. A gentle, charming and intelligent novel that is fiercely evocative of the landscape, people and culture of Botswana.

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  The Burning Shore by Wilbur Smith

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  Part of Smith's epic series of novels about the Courtney family, it tells the story of a young soldier and his affair with a French aristocrat. Set during the First World War in both France and Namibia, this is highly charged emotional drama.

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  Assegai by Wilbur Smith

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  Leon Courtney, big game hunter of the Masai territories, becomes embroiled in a web of international conspiracy when he is asked to spy on a German client, Count Otto von Meerbach. Gripping stuff set in Kenya during the build up to the First World War which won't disappoint.

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  When the Lion Feeds by Wilbur Smith

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  A classic adventure story set in 19th century South Africa which follows the lives of cattle farmers Sean and Garrick Courtney. Similar to The Thorn Birds, this epic saga takes the brotherse through the Zulu Wars, the gold rush, love, jealousy and tragedy. Fantastic, light and very gripping.

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  The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif

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  Compared to the likes of Isabel Allende, Ahdaf Soueif has written a compelling and passionate love story between an English woman and an Egyptian nationalist set in 1900. The details of their affair are gradually uncovered by Isabel, their descendent, who follows her own heart to Egypt some 100 years later. Short-listed for the Man Booker prize, this novel is beautifully written and very readable.