The best known books set in each country: Burkina Faso

See here for methodology. Books are disqualified if less than 50% of them is set in Burkina Faso.

These numbers are crunched by hand, not by AI.

Title	Author	Goodreads raters	LibraryThing owners
American Spy	Lauren Wilkinson	30,165	907
The Water Princess	Susan Verde	3,269	1,113
Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman	Malidoma Patrice Somé	1,733	382
The Weight of Sand: My 450 Days Held Hostage in the Sahara	Edith Blais	4409	48
Women’s Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle	Thomas Sankara	1,725	101
Ritual: Power, Healing and Community	Malidoma Patrice Somé	548	174
The Red Bicycle	Jude Isabella	429	165
Thomas Sankara Speaks: The Burkina Faso Revolution, 1983-87	Thomas Sankara	498	131

This was surprisingly easy to compile. The figure of the short-lived 1980s president of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara, looms over the country’s cultural footprint; two of his political texts are on this list, and the protagonist of this week’s winning novel fictionally seduces him while colluding in his overthrow. We also have two children’s books, two anthropological studies, and a real life hostage drama.

I disqualified only three books this week. I don’t know why anyone tagged Flowers from the Storm, by Laura Kinsale, as being relevant to Burkina Faso; it seems to be set in England and Wales. (Possibly the person using the tag acquired or read their copy of the book while travelling there.) Two other books cover Burkina Faso along with other African countries: Empire of Cotton: A Global History, by Sven Beckert, and White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa, by Susan Williams.

Coming next: Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Malawi and Zambia.

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The best known books set in each country: Burkina Faso

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