Literature

Monday, October 21st, 2013

Introducing K. Sello Duiker’s novel ‘Thirteen Cents’ to US audiences

K. Sello Duiker’s short novel, Thirteen Cents is simultaneously gruesome, violent, deeply disturbing, whimsical, and beautiful. Ohio University Press has just released the post-apartheid novelist’s debut book in the US as part of its Modern African Writing series. The book itself won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, Africa Region back in 2001,

Wednesday, October 9th, 2013

African Writers and the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature

As the Nobel Committee for Literature announces their chosen awardee tomorrow (1pm Swedish time), the past several weeks has been littered by quite a few notable predictions, arguments, and dream-lists. Even sports betting company Ladbrokes weighed in....

Wednesday, August 14th, 2013

Writing Windhoek

Literature in Windhoek takes many forms. Tucked at the intersections of Independence Avenue and Sam Nujoma Drive in the city centre, Wordweaver Publishing accomplishes perhaps its most challenging format: books. Outside the publication house’s yellow-painted bungalow-sized offices...

Monday, July 29th, 2013

On African Fiction(s)

I’ll admit to a certain amount of nervousness when the debate about who is and who is not an African – and in this version a “real African” writer – begins. As a South African, it seems...

Monday, July 1st, 2013

Whose “New African Writing”?

The latest issue of the Journal of Postcolonial and Commonwealth Studies takes on “African writing in the twenty-first century” and presents views on topics as varied as South African theater, queer Kenyan bloggers, digital publishing, and the Caine Prize for African...

Wednesday, December 5th, 2012

Literary Sudans: A Warscapes Retrospective

Guest Post by Bhakti Shringarpure In the past decade, not many places have been as over-represented or as under-understood than Sudan and the newly formed South Sudan. From a barrage of news articles to a flurry of...