This curriculum guide provides anthropological and historical research as well as literary criticism on five narratives from West Africa: Camara Laye’s The Dark Child, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Ama Ata Aidoo’s The Dilemma of a Ghost, Ousmane Sembene’s God’s Bits of Wood, and Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter. The background and critical materials are integrated into well-developed lesson plans which include reproducible student handouts, teacher resources, and reading resources.

Voices from the Continent will be a useful resource for college professors and teachers of English and social studies on the high school level who seek to diversify the standard curriculum by introducing students to modern African literature written or translated into English.

The featured literary works are available in the United States and appropriate for use in a variety of courses with students at different reading levels. These literary works introduce a variety of universal themes while simultaneously presenting the experiences of particular ethnic groups in different regions of West Africa.