A 1997 anthology, Under African Skies: Modern African Stories, edited by Charles Larson, features a wide range of contemporary African writers from the last fifty years working in a variety of narrative traditions.

The novel The Promised Land (1966), by Grace Ogot, was one of the first African novels published by a woman. The novel takes place during the colonial era and reveals the difficulties that a couple must undergo when they decide to migrate from their traditional homeland in Kenya to Tanganyika because of economic opportunities there. It is written from the point of view of the wife, Nyapol, highlighting her experience as a new bride and a newcomer in a foreign land.

As a contemporary of Ogot, Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o wrote Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1981), which makes a powerful argument for African...