Post-Colonial African Pop Culture

I have read several books that take place in modern-day Middle East and Africa:
- Things Fall Apart
- Kite Runner
- A Thousand Splendid Suns
- Shabanu, and Haveli (a series about the life of camel-herders that inhabit the desert in Western India)
- Habibi (set in Israel/Palestine)
- Poisonwood Bible (story of a pastor that moves to Congo in 1959, but that extends far into decolonization, too)
- Three Cups of Tea (story of a professional mountain climber who gives up climbing to found schools in Pakistan, starting with a school in the base camp village)

Coincidentally, this past quarter, my French class has been spent to watching and analyzing African films. Some films I've watched:

- Hotel Rwanda
- The Battle of Algiers
- Ali Zaoua (story of orphans who live on the streets in Casablanca)
- L'Enfant Endormi (story of the emigration of men from the Maghreb countryside to Europe, and the effect it has on those who stay)
- Yabba (one of the most interesting films I've ever seen; it depicts life in rural, rural, Burkina Faso)
- Moissons d'Acier (translation: Harvest of Steel; this movie, which I somehow downloaded off some obscure website for a project (it was once popular in the 1970's, but has since fallen into oblivion), describes the effect the mines left behind in Algeria by the French have on the people there)
- La Noirde (the story of a Senegalese woman who goes to France to work for a French family; she is so miserable there she ends up comitting suicide)
- Les Yeux Secs (the story of a certain village in the Moroccan countryside; perhaps the most touching of all the movies)

Pop Culture

I haven't read many books about Africa and the Middle East. The only two that I remember are the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini which we read in Freshman year, and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe which we read this year. The Kite Runner was about a boy who immigrates from the Middle East to America, and it follows him through his life and even involves conflict with the Taliban at the end. Things Fall Apart was about the colonization of a small village in Africa by the Europeans and explores the true relationship between the two cultures and the effects of the European's arrival.

Novels or Movies on Middle East and Africa

Much of the entertainment media today does not cover the Middle East or Africa.  I have, however, read a few books and seen a few movies with plots based there.  For English class, we read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.  And like most people in our class, I've seen Hotel Rwanda and Blood Diamond.