I have a gaping hole in my historical awareness shaped exactly like West Africa.
Could you recommend me good written sources on West African history?
The subreddit booklist is always a good place to start, which has a section of literature on West Africa as well.
Medieval West Africa: views from Arab scholars and merchants by Nehemia Levtzion, Jay Spaulding
African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa by Michael Gomez
Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Saʿdi's Taʾrīkh Al-Sūdān Down to 1613, and Other Contemporary Documents by John O. Hunwick
Ancient Kingdoms of West Africa: African-centred and Canaanite-Israelite Perspectives ; a Collection of Published and Unpublished Studies in English and French Dierk Lange
A Sudanic chronicle: the Borno expeditions of Idrīs Alauma (1564-1576) according to the account of Aḥmad b. Furṭū Aḥmad Ibn Furṭū, Dierk Lange