Use these lists to broaden your reading beyond authors from wealthy countries, to learn, gain new and important perspectives, and to find experts. Media outlets can also find journalists who, unlike those parachuted into the Global South for a few weeks or those writing about countries while not even in them, are experts in their regions and qualified to cover them. Note, inclusion isn’t some kind of endorsement, though I have read many of these authors and journos. These lists clearly aren’t exhaustive, but they will be updated regularly. If you should be on this list or you know someone who should be, please do send me info.
Authors – Writers of fiction or non-fiction who are from Global South countries and / or living in them.
Journalists – Journalists who are covering their Global South regions with articles, investigations, video, podcasts, opinion, and more, from those regions or with strong knowledge and ties to those regions (perhaps they grew up there but have since been forced to migrate) and with a non-Eurocentric or US-centric or pro-business perspective, and an understanding and respect for local knowledge and needs
Authors
Arundhati Roy – Indian journalist, fiction author, and activist. She writes about imperialism, issues in India such as the Narmada Dam project, nuclear weapons, and Enron, as well as power, war, corporations, and exploitation. She is the author of The God of Small Things, The End of Imagination, and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.
Ben Okri – Born in Nigeria, went to England as a child, then returned to Nigeria with his parents on the eve of the Nigerian Civil War, he is a poet, novelist, essayist, short story writer, anthologist, aphorist, and playwright. He is the author of many novels, including The Famished Road, which won the Booker Prize.
Alaa Abd el-Fattah – British–Egyptian political prisoner, writer, activist, and software developer, he has developed Arabic-language versions of software and platforms, and is the author of You Have Not Yet Been Defeated: Selected Writings 2011-2021.
Tamara Pearson – Australian-Mexican novelist, activist, journalist, who looks at the beauty and potential humans have that is squandered or killed by inequalities, migration, the trauma of empire, and more. Her latest novel is The Eyes of the Earth.
Jahanara Imam – Bangladeshi writer and activist, known for trying to ensure war criminals were held to account. Author of Of Blood and Fire, and Ekattorer Dinguli (autobiography).
Tahmima Anam – Bangladeshi-born British writer, novelist and columnist. Her novels, a trilogy, look at the Bangladesh War of Liberation.
Rania Mamoun – A Sudanese fiction writer, activist, and journalist, known for her novels, poems and short stories. She just recently sought asylum in the US.
Roque Dalton – Salvadoran poet, essayist, journalist, communist activist, and intellectual. He lived as a political exile in Guatemala, Mexico, Czechoslovakia, and Cuba. He was imprisoned multiple times in El Salvador.
Narayan Wagle – Nepali journalist, environmental activist, and author of novels set in the politics, struggles, and modern history of Nepal.
Nayomi Munaweera – A Sri Lankan-US writer and educator known for her novels Island of a Thousand Mirrors and What Lies Between Us.
Zeyn Joukhadar – He/they, Syrian-US author the novels The Map of Salt and Stars (Touchstone/S&S 2018) and The Thirty Names of Night
Jesús Lara – Bolivian writer, poet, novelist. He wrote a lot about Quechua poetry and was know for being part of the Indigenous rights movement. He was attacked on numerous occasions due to his membership of the Communist Party.
Chinua Achebe – Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who sought to escape the colonial perspective so dominant in published African literature at the time, and drew from the traditions of the Igbo people.
Mónica Ojeda – Ecuadorian novelist who explores pain, fear, sexuality, child porn, and other difficult or taboo topics.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Nigerian author and activist, writer of postcolonial feminist literature.
Fernanda Melchor – Mexican novelist who focuses on violence and how it impacts people’s lives.
Isabel Allende – Chilean-US writer, many of her novels contain elements of magical realism, Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the magical realism genre, and weave in history and feminism.
Fatima Bhutto – Pakistani writer. Her most recent books include the novel, The Runaways, and her non-fiction reportage, New Kings of the World. She is the author of Zeteo’s The Global South.
Amos Tutuola – Nigerian writer who wrote books based in part on Yoruba folk-tales
Wole Soyinka – Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist and actor who addresses topics of colonialism, culture, identity, power, injustice. He’s also a political activist who has been exiled and imprisoned multiple times.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o – Kenyan author and academic, who began writing in English then switched to writing primarily in Gikuyu. His work includes novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children’s literature.
Velma Pollard – A Jamaican poet known for her passion for the Patwa language and for Caribbean women’s writing, who died recently. She also wrote short stories and a memoir.
Siddharth Kara – Indian author, an associate professor at the University of Nottingham, and activist around modern slavery. He is best known for his book Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives.
Nanjala Nyabola – Kenyan non fiction author, political analyst, and activist based in Nairobi. Nyabola writes about African society and politics, technology, international law, and feminism.
Vijay Prashad – Indian historian, author, journalist, political commentator, and Marxist intellectual
Verónica Gago – Feminist activist, researcher in Argentina, author of Feminist International: How to Change Everything and other books around feminism and critiquing neoliberalism.
Ndongo Samba Sylla – Senagalese non-fiction author on topics like revolution, neoliberalism, imperialism, the “free trade scam” and more.
Nona Fernández – Chilean author (historical novels, stories, essays), actress, and screenwriter
Lina Meruane Boza – Chilean fiction and non-fiction author, and professor of Palestinian and Italian descent who looks at themes of illness, feminism, Palestine, and more.
Frantz Fanon – Caribbean and African psychiatrist, philosopher and revolutionary from Martinique (invaded by France). He wrote about colonialism, racism, critical theory, and Marxism.
Guillermo Folguera – Argentinian biologist and philosopher, with books about how the powerful use science and technology, the social and environmental impact of agro-industrial models, and more.
Ghassan Kanafani – Palestinian novelist, activist, and news editor who took part in founding the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in December 1967 and was elected to its political bureau. He also wrote short stories and plays, and some of his novels have been turned into films.
Cristina Dorador Ortiz – Chilean scientist, doctor, and former assembly member of the Chilean Constitutional Convention. Her books examine issues like the climate crisis, microbiology, limnology and geomicrobiology.
Adriana Guzmán Arroyo – Aimara Bolivian writer, activist, and feminist who looks at how feminist movements in different countries can better collaborate and critiques eurocentric feminism.
César Rengifo – Venezuelan playwright and realism painter, influenced by Diego Rivera, and he had closed ties to the Venezuelan Communist Party. His plays were about social struggle, independence, Indigenous resistance, and the petroleum era.
Mia Couto – Mozambican writer of Portuguese descent. He writes poetry, short stories, and novels, leaning particularly into magical realism, using regional vocabulary and Mozambican structures and he looks at topics like death, war, African ideas of existence, and the power of writing.
Gilbert Achcar – Born in Senegal, grew up in Lebanon, and now living in the UK, Achcar is a professor and author of various books on US foreign policy in the Middle East and narratives around the region, the Arab uprising, and more.
Ashwin Desai – South African author and director of the Centre of Social Change at the University of Johannesburg. His books look at apartheid, colour and class, resistance, revolution, sport and politics, and climate in South Africa.
Eduardo Galeano – Uruguayan writer and journalist who wrote books of usually non-fiction, but in vignette form, sometimes short stories or essays. He critiqued the impact of Spanish colonialism in Latin America, continued by the US, while also featuring the “nobodies” in many of his stories.
Geni Núñez – Indigenous Guarani author in Brazil who writes anti-colonial books. He is also an activist and psychologist.
Behrouz Boochani – Kurdish-Iranian journalist, activist, writer and film producer now living in New Zealand after being held in the Australian-run Manus Island detention centre for seven years.
Mohammed el-Kurd – Palestinian writer, journalist and poet, author of Perfect Victims.
Nawal El Saadawi – Egyptian feminist novelist, activist and physician. She described herself as a dissident.
Mahesh Paudyal – Nepalese academic, critic, poet, fiction writer, lyricist, and translator, and author of seven collections of short stories.
Célestine Hitiura Vaite – Polynesian writes whose novels describe life in contemporary Tahiti.
Begum Rokeya – Bengali writer, author of Sultana’s Dream, a 1905 Bengali feminist utopian story.
Mahmoud Darwish – Palestinian poet and author who also wrote the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, was exiled and later imprisoned for reciting poetry and traveling between villages without a permit. He was placed under house arrest when his poem Identity Card was turned into a protest song.
Bachir Ahmed Aomar – Sahrawi activist and poet whose writing focuses on justice for his people.
Journalists
Ramzy Baroud – US-Palestinian journalist and writer. He is the author of several books on the Israel-Palestinian conflict and founder of Palestine Chronicle.
Farooq Tariq – Pakistani journalist and activist.
Shahidul Alam – Bangladeshi photojournalist, author and activist. He founded the Drik Picture Library in 1989, Pathshala in 1998, the Chobi Mela International Photography Festival in 1999, and Majority World in 2004.
Noor Harazeen – Palestinian journalist and filmmaker.
Saher Alghorra – Born in Gaza city, Palestine, a prize-winning photo-journalist.
Gloria Muñoz – Mexican columnist, founder of Desinformémonos, journalist focused on social movements, Indigenous rights, and supporting community journalism.
Yousra Elbagir – Sudanese–British journalist and writer.
Tareq S. Hajjaj – Mondoweiss Gaza correspondent, and a member of the Palestinian Writers Union.
María Jimena Duzán – Critical Colombian journalist, podcaster.
Ricardo Vaz – Journalist and activist who grew up in Mozambique and now based in Venezuela, providing coverage of the impact of the sanctions and critiques of corporate media coverage.
Sharif Abdel Kouddous – US-born independent print and television journalist based in Egypt and the US.
Muntadhar al-Zaidi – Known for throwing a shoe at George Bush, an Iraqi broadcast journalist who was a correspondent for Iraqi-owned, Egyptian-based Al-Baghdadia TV. As of 2011, al-Zaidi works with a Lebanese TV channel, and he is also a writer and human-rights campaigner.
Rasti Delizo – Philippines activist and international politics analyst
Hossam el-Hamalawy – Egyptian journalist and activist who writes about Egypt’s military, security services, foreign policy, and local dissent, and is currently based in Germany.
resistance words 