Africa Is a Country

African poets for Africa

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

African poets for Africa

By
Liz Timbs

Badilisha is rare: an African project funded by a mix of government and private art donors, facilitating media access to African poets.

Badilisha Poetry X-Change (via Wiki Commons).

Back in 2011, Badilisha Poetry X-Change was previously featured on this platform with a spotlight on its podcast, Badilisha Poetry Radio. But, there is a lot more to Badilisha than just the podcast. This is a digital poetry archive, preserving African poetry in both its written and oral forms. This dynamic archive is managed by Linda Kaoma (a poet in her own right) and is a product of the Cape Town-based Africa Centre, a pan-Africanist collective that aims to use culture as a means for social change (some other projects from Africa Centre that you might have come across include the Infecting the City festival and WikiAfrica).

Badilisha is rare, in a sense, because it is completely funded by South African donors, including the National Lottery, the National Arts Council of South Africa, and Spier Wine Farm. If you look back through most of the Digital Archive posts, the majority of African digital projects are either based in the U.S/Europe or funded by backers from these regions. But, this is an African project, aiming to broaden the access to African poets for Africans in particular who, without a forum such as this, have limited ability to be “inspired and influenced by their own writers and poets – negatively impacting their personal growth, identity, development and sense of place.” The initiative is also intended to bring African authors’ work to a wider audience, which it most certainly does.

Though this is a South African-based project, it’s content certainly isn’t limited to South Africa.  Content comes from around the world, from the United Kingdom to Senegal to Sri Lanka to Zimbabwe. You can also search for poets by language, with poems in major European languages (like English, French, German, and Portuguese) as well as African languages (like Xhosa, Zulu, Pedi, Venda, and Swahili, to name a few). You can also navigate the nearly work of the over 350 poets by theme and emotion. I lost myself in the History-themed poems for quite a while, especially “Things Fall Apart” by Hector Kunene.

Follow Badilisha on Facebook and Twitter. Explore this awesome collection and let us know what you think in the comments below. As always, feel free to send me suggestions in the comments or via Twitter of sites you might like to see covered in future editions of the series.

Further Reading

After the uprising

Years into Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict, the rebellion faces internal fractures, waning support, and military pressure—raising the question of what future, if any, lies ahead for Ambazonian aspirations.

In search of Saadia

Who was Saadia, and why has she been forgotten? A search for one woman’s story opens up bigger questions about race, migration, belonging, and the gaps history leaves behind.

Binti, revisited

More than two decades after its release, Lady Jaydee’s debut album still resonates—offering a window into Tanzanian pop, gender politics, and the sound of a generation coming into its own.

The bones beneath our feet

A powerful new documentary follows Evelyn Wanjugu Kimathi’s personal and political journey to recover her father’s remains—and to reckon with Kenya’s unfinished struggle for land, justice, and historical memory.

What comes after liberation?

In this wide-ranging conversation, the freedom fighter and former Constitutional Court justice Albie Sachs reflects on law, liberation, and the unfinished work of building a just South Africa.

The cost of care

In Africa’s migration economy, women’s labor fuels households abroad while their own needs are sidelined at home. What does freedom look like when care itself becomes a form of exile?

The memory keepers

A new documentary follows two women’s mission to decolonize Nairobi’s libraries, revealing how good intentions collide with bureaucracy, donor politics, and the ghosts of colonialism.

Making films against amnesia

The director of the Oscar-nominated film ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ reflects on imperial violence, corporate warfare, and how cinema can disrupt the official record—and help us remember differently.