10 fascinating African literature books that would blow your freaking mind

The weather outside may be frightful, but your May reading should be delightful!

For those who have no idea what to read, here are titles worth adding to your bookshelf.

If you're looking for intrigue, history, young adult fiction, mystery and a bit of science fiction, these books have it all.

1. The Secret History of Las Vegas by Chris Abani

The Secret History of Las vegas is a gritty, riveting, and wholly original murder,horror, mystery book from PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author and 2015 Edgar Awards winner Chris Abani.

2. Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Written by Award winning author Nnedi Okroafor, Lagoon is a science fiction novel that describes aliens descending upon Lagos. This is a perfect blend of science fiction and fantasy and fairy tales and mythology and urban legends and media reporting and every other way that we tell stories.

3. We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (2013), the Guardian First Book Award, and winner of the inaugural Etisalat Prize for Literature (2013), this book tells the unflinching and powerful story of a young girl's journey out of Zimbabwe to America.

4. Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah

Exhausted, traumatized, mutilated physically and spiritually by a brutal war, two longtime friends return to their hometown, Imperi, after the civil war. This is a powerful novel about preserving what it is important to us, even in uncertain times.

5. This House is not for Sale by EC Osondu

Described as an original novel from a master storyteller and award-winning author. This House is no for sale paints a vivid, fully imagined portrait of an extraordinary African family and the house that holds them together.

6. Penumbra by Songeziwe Mahlangu

Penumbra is an original novel whose fast paced and descriptive writing would keep you captivated.  Narrated from the perspective of the protagonist Mangaliso Zolo, whose struggle with mental illness is worsened by drug and alcohol abuse which he takes part in with his friends, Penumbra gives a perspective of Cape Town that is debauched and depressing.

7. BomBoy by Yewande Omotoso

This book tells the story of Leke, a troubled young man who stalks people, who steals small items because of the sense of loneliness and abandonment he feels. This book is a book of silence, a book of how people deal with solitude.

Bom Boy is also a well-crafted, and complex narrative written with a sensitive understanding of both the smallness and magnitude of a single life.

8. An Imperfect Blessing by Nadia Davids

Nadia David's An Imperfect Blessing is an excellent novel that details life living under a Coloured and Muslim identity in South Africa very personally and honestly. Set in 1994, the text creates a very distinct South African feel. David's discusses a coming of age narrative of a teenage girl, Alia, as she and her community transition out of the age of the Apartheid.

9. Young Blood by Sifiso Mzobe

Winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa in 2012, the Sunday Times Fiction Prize and the Herman Charles Bosman Prize for Literature in 2011. Young Blood tells a tale of sex, drugs and hijacking from the point of view of a teenaged bad guy. It also gives an excellent reflection of how peer pressure forces our youth to commit crime. They want to be seen driving big cars and wearing fancy clothes and they will do anything to get them.

10.  All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu

From acclaimed author Dinaw Mengestu, a recipient of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 award, The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 award, and a 2012 MacArthur Foundation genius grant, comes an unforgettable love story about a searing affair between an American woman and an African man in 1970s America and an unflinching novel about the fragmentation of lives that straddle countries and histories.

READ: 10 Best African classics you should read before you turn 30