Namibia's literature is younger than most — written records in the colonial languages only really started after 1884 — but the small body of writing about the country is unusually intense, shaped by the genocide of the Herero and Nama in 1904-08 and by the long apartheid-era struggle for independence.
Henning Mankell, The White Lioness — A Kurt Wallander mystery set partly in Sweden and partly around Windhoek and the Karoo, in the dying years of South African rule. Less interesting as a thriller than as a portrait of Namibia in the late 1980s.
André Brink, The Other Side of Silence — Brink, the South African novelist, set this novel in German South West Africa around the time of the Herero genocide. It is grim, beautifully written, and one of the few major novels in English about that history.
Mari Serebrov, Mama Namibia — A novel based on a Herero woman's account of surviving the 1904 war. Less polished than Brink but emotionally closer to the experience.
Henno Martin, The Sheltering Desert — Two German geologists hid in the Namib desert for two and a half years to avoid being interned during the Second World War. Martin's memoir of their improvised life on game meat and rainwater is required reading before any trip to the country, including Windhoek.
Tony Park, African Sky — An airborne adventure thriller set partly in 1940s Windhoek when the city was a remote outpost of the British Commonwealth war effort. Light reading but a useful counterpoint to the heavier histories.