Nigerian author Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart (1958) explores the conflict between African and European cultures during the era of colonization, employing a narrative style similar to that of an oral historian.

Camara Laye offers a different rendition of the Sundiata legend in his book The Guardian of the Word: Kouma Lafolo Kouma, which was translated from French to English in 1980.

The Children of Segu, translated into English in 1989, is Maryse Condé's fictional depiction of the Bambara kingdom in Mali at the close of the eighteenth century.

A collection named West African Folktales (1993) by Jack Berry presents readers with the oral storytelling tradition of West Africa through a series of brief tales.