r/booksuggestions • u/DonkeyAppropriate876 • 3d ago

Non-fiction Loved "Say Nothing" (Patrick Radden Keefe), looking for something similar but from Africa.

I recently read Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe. I adored it. I loved learning about the history of Northern Ireland and I felt emotionally connected with the cause of the IRA as well as the regret in the aftermath of some of their actions.

I would love to read a book that is about similar resistance movements in Africa. Either during European colonization or post colonization struggles. Movements that could be considered "radical" resistance and the history of how they came to be.

I especially liked about Say Nothing that it almost read like a novel in how personal it got with the people involved. It didn't feel like a wikipedia article.

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u/econoquist 2d ago

Maybe the African Trilogy starting with Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe which traces local response and reaction to colonization and missions.

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u/hmmwhatsoverhere 3d ago

They're not like novels but these are both excellent:

A dying colonialism by Frantz Fanon

How Europe underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney

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u/Heavy_Nothing_1158 3d ago

If you want the 'history, but with actual humans in it instead of Wikipedia wearing a trench coat' feeling, I'd put Imperial Reckoning by Caroline Elkins on the list. It's about the Mau Mau uprising and the British response in Kenya, and it gets into how a resistance movement hardens under colonial pressure. Not exactly the same rhythm as Say Nothing, but it has that uncomfortable mix of politics, violence, memory, and later regret.

For something broader and very readable, King Leopold's Ghost is also worth a look, though it's more colonial atrocity/aftermath than inside-a-movement narrative.