My translation, published in a trilingual edition by @flippedeye.bsky.social (and winner of a PEN Translates award from @englishpen.bsky.social ).

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The Island Prize Family Tree keeps growing ...🎉📚🌍🌊🎉

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Two editions of Tayeb Salih's "Season of Migration to the North" (1969 [1966]; translated from Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies). On the left the Heinemann edition with a black cover designed by Bill Hayes featuring a sculpture of a woman's head and upper torso, and on the chest of this figure there is a painting of a human figure in Arab dress standing in a landscape of palm trees over which a bright sun shines; the title of the book appears in all capitals above at the top of the frame, and below it in standard orthography the name of the book. On the right is the Penguin paperback edition featuring a cover photograph by Jeff Cottenden of blue potsherds and a delicately fringed cotton cloth with flowers and a butterfly embroidered onto it on a wooden surface; at the bottom of the frame, below this image, on a grey background, there is the name of the author in white print, and the name of the book in black print, both in standard orthography, with the Penguin publisher's logo (a black and white penguin inside an orange oval) on the left.

Books that have stayed with you or influenced you, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.

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Hardback of Karel Schoeman's "Na die geliefde land" (Human & Rousseau 1972; title may be literally translated as "To the beloved land"). Cover is a charcoal background with the book title in textured white capitals across three lines taking up 90% of the space, and below it, in standard orthograpby, the author's name in white.

Cover of the paperback of Karel Schoeman's "Na die geliefde land" (Human & Rousseau, 2007 [1972]). Cover design by Michiel Botha features a photograph of the pitched roof of a yellow house with a shutter covering a garret window below the eaves, and behind the house can be seen the tops of gum trees and a blue sky dotted with a few wispy clouds (which image takes up 70% of the frame); below this, on a black band taking up 10% of the frame, is printed the author's name in white letters using standard orthography, and the bookntitle in white capitals; below that, taking up the bottom 20% of the frame is what appears to be a close-up detail from the photograph above.

Cover of the hardback English edition of Karel Schoeman's "Promised Land" (1972; translated from Afrikaans by Marion V. Friedmann in 1978 for Julian Friedmann Publishers). The jacket design by Cliff Harper features a pastel drawing of a landscape hemmed in by a delapidated fence and seen through a window, the frame of which takes up the bottom and right hand side of the cover. The book title and author's name appear in brown capitals in the lower right corner of the cover.

Cover of Karel Schoeman's "Promised Land" (1978; translated from Afrikaans by Marion V. Friedmann, Futura paperback edition from 1979); the cover is pale blue, and inside a black thin-lined frame, the author's name appears in dark blue capitals at the top of the cover, the book title in textured blue capitals nearer the centre, and below that a roughly shaped rendition of Africa, with the majority of the map black, and red where South Africa is. The cover also has a quote by Graham Greene in black capitals: 'A sort of South African 1984, more subtle than Orwell's, imaginativ3 and disturbing'.

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"Women Writing Africa: The Northern Region" edited by Fatima Sadiqi, Amira Nowaira, Azza El Kholy, & Mona Ennaji (The Women Writing Africa Project Volume 4, Wits University Press 2009). Cover art: "The Secrets of Silence" (1998) by Huda Lutfi--acrylic, & handprints on paper (two rows of women nearly identical, the brown bodies seemingly nude, their arms raised, Arabic script above their heads; only the heads of the second row of women can be seen below the first row). Upper 45% of the cover is the title of the book in black capitals and the subtitle in dark blue ordinary orthography; the middle 45% of the cover is Lutfi's artwork; the bottom 10% shows the editors' names in bronze-yellow print of standard orthography against a dark blue band.

"Women Writing Africa: West Africa and the Sahel" edited by Esi Sutherland-Addy and Aminata Diaw (The Women Writing Africa Project Volume 2, Wits University Press, 2005). Cover design by Dayna Navaro. Cover art: "Sous-verre", India ink and lacquer paint under glass, Senegal (from a private collection in New York) depicts a woman sitting cross-legged, playing a string instrument in her lap, wearing a spotted grey dress and matching headwrap, round red earrings, and blue trousers. The upper 45% of the cover is a yellow bakground on which the book title is printed in black capitals, and the subtitle in standard black letters; the image takes up the middle 45%; at the bottom the editors' names appear in black standard orthography on a red band which takes up 10% of the frame.

"Women Writing Africa: The Eastern Region" edited bt Amandina Lihamba, Fulata L. Moyo, M.M. Mulokozi, Naomi L. Shitemi, & Saïds Yahya-Othman (The Women Writing Africa Project Volume 3, Wits University Press, 2007). Cover art by Poni Yengi of Tanzania shows human figures drawn in dark lines with patches of orange, red, and grey dominating. The upper 45% of the cover is the book title in black capitals and the subtitle in standard orthography against a yellow background; the Yengi artwork takes up the 45% below that, and the editors' names appear in standard yellow orthography on a blue-green band in the bottom 10% of the cover designed by Dayna Navaro.

"Women Writing Africa: The Southern Region" edited by M.J. Daymond, Dorothy Driver, Sheila Meintjes, Leloba Molema, Chiedza Musengezi, Margie Orford, & Nobantu Rasebotsa (The Women Writing Africa Project Volume 1, Wits University Press, 2003). Cover design by Lime Blue shows a woman in profile, looking upwards towards the upper right of the frame, her hands held together against her stomach, her hair tied back. The cover is yellow, the book title appearing in white capitals in two different fontson the right of the frame above the subtitle capitalised in bold blue small print, below which the editors are listed over seven lines in standard blue letters.

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Saul Dubow's "Illicit Union: scientific racism in modern South Africa" (Witwatersrand University Press; 1995), a volume in the Cambridge WUP African Studies Series. The cover is a deep red background with an illustration of four men's heads drawn facing the viewer and in profile, reminscent of nineteenth century colonial and early twentieth century imperial notions of racial difference (sic). The book title and subtitle appear above this image in white capitals and standard orthography respectively, and the author's name appears in capitals below the image. A diagonal strap in the lower right corner indicates "For sale in South Africa only. Not for export'.

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Cover of Pepetela's "A Gloriosa Família: O Tempo dos Flamengos" (1997), the cover featuring two illustrations separated by the name of the author in black capitals and the title of the novel in red ones; the top image is a black and white drawing of some thatched buildings on a coastline backed by palm trees, and the bottom image is a brown and white sketch of enslaved Black men on a ship's deck being manhandled by white sailors, the scene supervised by the captain, his arms folded.

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Cover of Helon Habila's "Travellers" in the Hamish & Hamilton hardback edition, featuring a monochromatic photograph of a man and a woman. He is on the left of the frame wearing a chequered flat cap and grey jumper over a collared white shirt; he is smiling broadly and his left arm (a watch at the wrist) is bent at the elbow as his hand cups the chin of the woman on the right of the frame; she is laughing, her eyes shut, and can be seen wearing a beret, a large earring in her left ear blurred mid-swing, and a black top over which can be seen a large pendant on a long chain. The image is credited to Magnum Photos; the cover design by gray318 renders the book title in black print on a green band above the photograph, and the author's name in black print on a yellow band below the image.

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Faber edition of Petina Gappah's "Elegy for Easterly" (2010 [2009]), the cover featuring a blurry photograph of two human figures walking in a field of tall grass with a tree in the distance, beneath a cloudy blue sky, their backs to the viewer, the one closest has a child tied to her back with a white cloth or blanket, her hat dangling next to the child's head, the dark material of her dress marked with equidistant yellow spots and a wide white hem; she is alsp careying a large object (possibly a basket) in front of her; her shoulders are bare; ahead of her is an even more blurred human figures dressed in red, a large object balanced on its head and held in place with the right hand. The author's name appears in black print at the top of the frame, the book title in red print below that; the Faber logo appeaers in cream in the bottom right corner of the cover; the image is credited to Hannah Mentz/Corbis.

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Cover of the English translation of Anouar Benmalek's "The Child of an Ancient People" in the Harvill Press paperback edition featuring a photograph by Penny Tweedie/Corbis of a pair of hands holding dark brown snail shells at the bottom of the frame. The author's name appears in grey-green at the top of the frame, above the book title in white letters; the Harvill leopard emblem appears in the top left hand corner of the frame.

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Cover of Buchi Emecheta's "The Joys of Motherhood" (1979), the Geprge Braziller paperback edition; the cover design bt Catherine Stock features an illustration of a woman holding a child on her chest; the human figures arr rendered in black with white lines to differentiate faces and limbs; the woman is figures in a dress and headwrap of the same light and dark brown pattern; the author's name is rendered in black capitals in the upper right corner of the frame; the novel title appears in larger font black letters below that in standard orthography.

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J.M. Coetzee's "In the heart of the country" (1977), Secker & Warburg hardback edition; cover is black with the author's name at the top of the frame in white capitals, the book title in the centre of the frame in capitals (each letter both yellow and orange), and the words 'A NOVEL' in white capitals at the bottom of the frame.

J.M. Coetzee's "In the heart of the country" (1977), Ravan Press South African edition; the cover design by Richard Smith is green with a black and white line drawing of a woman's head and shoulders, face tilted upwards, lank hair streaming down her back on the left of the frame, the eye sockets black, the eyebrows meeting at a black furrow in line with the nose which appears horizontally given the angle at which the head is tilted (the image recalls William Kentridge's art); the novel title appears in black capitals at the top of the frame, and the author's name appears in smaller sized capital below that.

J.M. Coetzee's "In the heart of the country" (1977), Penguin paperback edition; the cover is black, featuring an illustration credited to Bascove, of a woman whose face is vertically bifurcated, looking into a gilt framed mirror, in which the landscape behind her can be seen through a window frame; her hair is tied in a bun, one strand loose in front of her right ear, giving the viewer sight of her right shoulder in a pale blue dress with floral edging; one half of her face appears normal, the other presents an empty eye socket, lined forehead, and lips reduced to vertical lines. The author's name appears in white capitals at the top of the frame above the image, below which the book title appears over two lines in orange capitals; at the bottom of the frame, below the image, text in all capitals informs us the book is "by the author of 'Waiting for the Barbarians'" (this edition dates from 1982).

J.M. Coetzee's "In the heart of the country" (1977), Vintage paperback edition; cover is dark blue featuring a Sylvia Pitcher photograph of a wooden wagon wheel resting against the wooden end post of a trellis fence; to the right of the wheel there is a stonework post; blurred into the background there seems to be a farmyard. The author's name appears in bronze serif letters below this image, and the book title appears in white capitals below that. In the top right hand corner of the frame there is a pale blue "V", the imprint logo.

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Cover of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's "Decolonising the mind: the politics of language in African literature" (1986) in the James Currey / Heinemann paperback edition; cover image shows the upper half the face of the author; author name appears in black capitals at the top of the frame, book title in brown standard orthography below that, and the subtitle across two lines in all capitals but smaller font size below the title in the same colour.

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Three copies of Mozambican writer Mia Couto's "A confissão ds leoa" / "Confessions of the Lionness", from left to right, in original Portuguese Ndjira paperback, and Harvill & Secker and Farrar Strauss Giroux hardback English translations by David Brookshaw.

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The Zed Press paperback edition of Eduardo Mondlane's "The Struggle for Mozambique" (1983 [1969]), featuring a red cover with a photograph of Mondlane (on the right) and Samora Machel (on the left) sitting down, seemingly in conversation during the anticolonial liberation struggle against Portuguese settler occupation. The book title and author name appear above the photograph in white and silver capitals respectively, and below the photograph there are notifications for John Saul's introduction and Herb Shore's biographical sketch in standard orthography above the Zed Press logo in silver at the bottom of the frame.

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Cover of "Engendering African Social Sciences", edited by Ayesha Imam, Amina Mama, & Fatou Sow for CODESRIA (Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa) Dakar, Senegal; published in 1997, the white book cover design by Simon Acquah features an abstract artwork in blue ink and an off-kilter yellow square in the bottom half of the frame while the book title appears in large blue capitals in thebupper half of the frame, and the names of the editors in smalls standard orthography below that.

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Two editions of Ugandan historian Mahmood Mamdani's "Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism"; on the left of the frame the James Currey, London / Fountain, Kampala / David Philip, Cape Town edition from 1996 featuring an uncredited ceramic artwork of musicians; on the right the Wits University Press, Johannesburg & Makerere Institute of Social Research, Kampala edition from 2017 featuring Nadir Tharani's 'The Magician Making Light' (2014) on the cover.

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Cover of Nadine Gordimer's "July's People" (1981 Ravan Press and Taurus South African edition), brown dustjacket, the novel title in white capitals in the lower half of the frame, the author's name at the top of the frame in orange letters in standard orthography. Jacket design by One + One Studio.

Cover of Nadine Gordimer's "July's People" (1981 Viking US edition), black dustjacket, the novel title in white capitals in the lower half of the frame, the author's name at the top of the frame in gold letters in standard orthography. Jacket design by One + One Studio.

Cover of Nadine Gordimer's "July's People" (1981 Penguin paperback), orange cover, the author name and novel title in black capitals at the top of frame abovr an image of four huts in the veld, two green trees and brown grass beyond the, the whole portrayed as if seen through the crude windowframe of another hut with two keys on a ring resting on the sill. The cover illustration is by Josie Yee, and the design is by Neil Stuart.

Cover of Nadine Gordimer's "July's People" (1981, Bloomsbury paperback); the upper half of the cover features an image of electrical wiring on a wooden post against a blue sky and the author's name in white capitals; the lower half of the cover features a thatched roof of a hut seen through a crudely constructed stick fence and the novel title in grey capitals. The cover photography is credited to Ali Campbell, and the design to William Webb.

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Cover of Nuruddin Farah's "Sardines" (1981) featuring a charcoal figure of a veiled head by Don Kilpatrick III, a photograph by Michael S. Lewis of a right hand holding a yellow cloth against a blue-grey backdrop which covers much of the lower 40% of the frame, the whole designed by Scott Sorenson. Author name and book title appear in all capitals in bronze and indigo respectively against the white 60% portion of the cover.

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José Eduardo Agualusa's "A General Theory of Oblivion" (2015), Daniel Hahn's English translation of the original Portuguese "Teoria Geral do Esquecimento" (2012). Cover is a montage of pink and red and green, with details from photographs of a dark green doorway, a damaged concrete building, and what appears to be electrical or barbed wiring against a green wall.

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Ama Ata Aidoo's "Our Sister Killjoy: or Reflections from a Black-eyed Squint" (1977) in the Longman African Writers edition, featuring an illustration by Gerry Baptist of two trees on two panels, on the left a tree with drooping branches in a field of grass and flowers, red leaves hanging from its branches and brown leaves on the grass; on the right a palm tree beneath a red sun on yellow sand and rocks.

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Naguib Mahfouz's "The Cairo Trilogy" in the Everyman's Library hardback edition; cover is a photograph of Mahfouz on a Cairy street clutching a newspaper to his side.

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Bessie Head's "A Bewitched Crossroad" showinga photograph of four men on horseback leading cattle on a dusty road with the sun behind them visible throughbthe branches of a thorn tree on the left of the frame. The men's faces are obscured because they are backlit by the sun. The image is credited to Peter Johnson (1984). Author name and novel title appear at the top of the frame in all capitals and standard orthography respectively.

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Cover of Cheikh Anta Diop's "Precolonial Black Africa", showing a monochromatic photograph of a bust in unknown material, the top of the head missing; this image is framed by two bands in different shades of red; the book title and author name appear in the inner, lighter red frame above and below the image respectively.

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Cover of Ayi Kwei Armah's "The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born" (1968), the Heinemann African Writers Series edition, cover design by Keith Pointing using an illustration by Christopher Brown in the style of West African market art, of two human figures in worshipful postures before a radio on top of a television on top of a pink car with bottles of alcohol on bonnet and trunk (and an LP record on each bottle mouth), the wheels of the csr resting on a washing machine on the left and a refrigerator on the right, and a giant soda bottle in the style of old Coke ones between the appliances; next to each of the appliances is another human figure, both clad in red. All figures wear what appears to be West African garb and headdresses.

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Zimbabwe Publishing House edition of Tsitsi Dangarembga's "Nervous Conditions" (1988); cover art by Claudette Johnson is a drawing of Black woman wearing a beige clothing item wrapped in voluminous folds obscuring the shape of her body; she looks directly at the viewer, and an earring dangles from her left lobe; author name and book title appear in bold black capitals over the image in the lower half of the frame; the publishing house logo, a styliaed icon of the Zimbabwe Bird atop the letters Z, P, and H, appears in the lower right hand corner of the cover.

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Samir Amin's "Obsolescent capitalism: contemporary politics and global disorder" (Zed Books, 2003); translated by Patrick Camiller from French; cover is green with the author's name in black letters, the book title in black capitals, and the subtitle red letters on a white ribbon at the bottom of the frame; the upper third of the frame is an uncredited monochromatic photograph of a damaged concrete structure pockmarked by bullet holes topped by steel girders of what was once a lit-up sign in Arabic and English; cover designed by Andrew Corbett.

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Cover of the English translation of Nawal El Saadawi's "God Dies by the Nile"; cover illustration by Phyllis Mahon is of a woman whose face appears in profile looking to her right (the left of the frame), her arm raised above her head so that he dark right armpit is visible to the viewer, her eyes are shit, and her lank blacl hair falls onto her left shoulder in the right of the frame; the image is surrounded by a white covrr on which the name of the author appears at the top of the frame above the name of the book, with text identifying Saadawi as the author of "Woman at Point Zero" in-between.

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Hardback first editions of Noni Jabavu's "Drawn in Colour: African Contrasts" and "The Ochre People: Scenes from a South African Life" (published by John Murray in 1960 and 1963 respectively); "Drawn in Colour" is an orange cover with a drawing of an aloe in bloom backed by a white circle representing the sun and a white line across the lower quarter of the frame representing the horizon, while the book yitle appears in large black capitals at the top of the frame, the subtitle in green below it, and next to the figure of the sun the author's name in white letters; "Ochre People" cover is dull yellow verging on khaki, figuring three orange and white aloes in descending size from left to right to create perspective, a big orange circle in the top right hand of the frame as the sun, book title im all white capitals, subtitle capitalised smaller font, and authoe name in green on the right halfway down the frame.

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Ahmadou Kourouma's "Waiting for the wid beasts to vote" (originally published as "En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages"; translated by Frank Wynne); cover shows "Mali Malinke Hunters" credited to Charles Lenars, which is a photograph of a mam wearing cloth wrapped around his head and down around his chin with the ends hanging down to his shoulders on either side of his face, the long barrel of a rifle visible behind his head.

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