The best known books set in each country: Kenya

See here for methodology; I am excluding books not actually set in Kenya, as noted below.

Title	Author	Goodreads raters	LibraryThing owners
Out of Africa	Isak Dinesen	45,176	5,324
Circling the Sun	Paula McLain	79,904	2,025
The Constant Gardener	John Le Carré	29,205	5,281
West with the Night	Beryl Markham	39,109	3,688
The Sun Sister	Lucinda Riley	73,655	540
When Stars Are Scattered	Victoria Jamieson	28,659	1,272
Out of Africa / Shadows on the Grass	Isak Dinesen	11,568	2,146
A Change in Altitude	Anita Shreve	12,057	1,232

Disqualified: Dreams from my Father, by Barack Obama, was way ahead of the field, but it is mainly set in America. Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, was second on Goodreads, but is set all over the place and especially in Somalia rather than Kenya. A bit further down the table, the short story collection Say You’re One of Them, by Uwem Akpan, has settings in several different countries including Kenya.

Women are very well represented, John Le Carré being the only male author on the list. Circling the Sun, which tops the Goodreads raking, is a novel about Beryl Markham, whose real autobiography comes third on Goodreads and fourth on LibraryThing (but fourth on my ranking). Denys Finch-Hatton scores very well here, as the overlapping lover of both Beryl Markham and Karen Blixen; basically half of my Kenya list is about shagging him (because Out of Africa comes up twice).

The top Kenyan author on Goodreads and LibraryThing is Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and his top book is A Grain of Wheat.

Next: Colombia.

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The best known books set in each country: Kenya

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