http://www.amazon.com/Things-Fall-Apart-Chinua-Achebe/dp/0385474547 "One of Chinua Achebe's many achievements in his acclaimed first novel, Things Fall Apart, is his relentlessly unsentimental rendering of Nigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism. First published in 1958, just two years before Nigeria declared independence from Great Britain, the book eschews the obvious temptation of depicting pre-colonial life as a kind of Eden. Instead, Achebe sketches a world in which violence, war, and suffering exist, but are balanced by a strong sense of tradition, ritual, and social coherence."
Re: Colonial-era Africa
http://www.amazon.com/Chaka-African-Writers-Thomas-Mofolo/dp/0435902296
A fictionalised account of Chaka Zulu, pub. 1925.
http://www.amazon.com/Things-Fall-Apart-Chinua-Achebe/dp/0385474547
"One of Chinua Achebe's many achievements in his acclaimed first novel, Things Fall Apart, is his relentlessly unsentimental rendering of Nigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism. First published in 1958, just two years before Nigeria declared independence from Great Britain, the book eschews the obvious temptation of depicting pre-colonial life as a kind of Eden. Instead, Achebe sketches a world in which violence, war, and suffering exist, but are balanced by a strong sense of tradition, ritual, and social coherence."
Some lists of African books:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/africa/cuvl/Afbks.html
http://library.jccc.net/guides/literature/africannovel.html
I don't know veejane, but it doesn't look like she's on DW, or at least not under that name.