Inside In the United States of Africa (2009), French-speaking African writer Abdourahman A. Waberi turns the fortunes of the world upside down. On this reimagined globe a stream of sorry humanity flows from the West, from the slums of America and the squalor of Europe, to escape poverty and desperation in the prosperous United States of Africa. It is in this world that an African doctor on a humanitarian mission to France adopts a child. And this story is as deadly serious as it is wickedly satiric.

Thanks to the translators, David and Nicole Ball, this tale was made available in an English translation, which is exactly what Ann Morgan was looking for.

Morgan, a news editor and feature writer for the Guardian, has pledged this year to read a book from every country. Her choice from Djibouti was In the United States of Africa.

On her blog she wrote, “The humour is of course only the outriding breeze of a gale of indignation and righteous anger about the skewed perspective that the ‘developed’ world has on its neighbours.”