International thief thief
There can no longer be false justifications for holding Benin Bronzes, and other pilfered materials, in museums outside of Africa.
10 Articles by:
Lily Saint
Lily Saint is Associate Professor of English at Wesleyan University and author of 'Black Cultural Life in South Africa' (U. of Michigan Press 2018).
African literature is a country
What if you survey African literature professors to find out which works and writers are most regularly taught? Only a few canonical ones continue to dominate curricula.
History time
The historical novel is in vogue across the continent, challenging how we conceive of the nation, and how we write its histories.
Afri-comics in the afterlife
Lily Saint talks with historian William Worger about the archive of sponsored comics by South Africa’s Apartheid government that he is amassing at UCLA.
The danger of a single author
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2013 novel, ‘Americanah,’ was the 2017 choice for the “One Book, One New York” campaign. Is the campaign necessarily a good thing?
Political Theater
Robert Mugabe and how how quickly style and showmanship can sweep away an audience, even when the underlying message promotes violence and jingoistic triumphalism.
New, Old South African Theater
The success of ‘Mies Julie’ tells us more about the way that audiences in the Global North like to think about South Africa than it does about actual South Africa.
Reading List: Lily Saint
The author, a regular contributor, summarizes four new books she’s been reading.
Anton Kannemeyer’s Africa
How meanings, symbolism, and narratives of “other” places and products shift when contextualized within and against South Africa.
Die Antwoord is Badass
Die Antwoord’s magnetism (or repulsion) lies in the way they combine clichés about race with those of gender and sexuality.