Hollywood’s 419 Scam
Africa is apparently hot in Hollywood, but can Hollywood be trusted with African stories?
6443 Article(s) by:
Ladan Osman
Ladan Osman is the author of Exiles of Eden (2019) and The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony (2015). She lives in Brooklyn.
Blind to the matatus
The future of Kenya’s matatus (commuter buses) and their inherent place in the capital Nairobi’s culture and society, is all but absent in the government’s neoliberal vision for urban planning.
Running is work
What a documentary film on running can tell us about Ethiopia’s development trajectory.
We are all Haitians
In memory of J. Michael Dash, the Caribbean thinker and literature scholar.
The crisis of Ghana’s fisheries
Ghana is facing widespread illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in its coastal waters causing economic hardship in fishing communities.
Pan-African aspirations by neoliberal means
As the African Union embarks on its most ambitious project—creating the largest free-trade area in the world—we have some questions.
Scenes from a Dry City
A film about Cape Town’s water crisis raises profound questions about the character and stability of South Africa’s post-apartheid trajectory.
Are the Russians forging an ’empire’ in Africa?
In contrast to renewed fears in the west over Russian expansionism in Africa, Russia’s increased presence on the continent is mostly about pursuing lucrative business opportunities.
Religion and conflict in Cameroon
Traditional, Islamic and Christian leaders are all being caught up in the conflict over secession in the Southern Cameroons.
Climate, conflict and capitalism fuel xenophobia
We need to understand how climate change impacts the current and future flow of refugees and displaced persons, and ask why the protection needs of climate refugees are not being met.
The radical afterlives of Frantz Fanon
A documentary film takes Fanon’s ideas out of the past and tracks the ways in which his ideas are resonating with today’s young across the planet.
Judgement Day
A commentary on how Egyptian society treats the abandoned, disabled, or those suffering from ailments and thus deemed a risk.
When the ‘President of the rich’ met the ‘Black President’
What does Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Fela Kuti’s New Afrika Shrine say about what happened to Fela Kuti’s legacy in Nigeria.
Decolonizing the museum
How should Belgium’s Africa Museum address its colonial past?
The complicated political legacy of Jerry Rawlings
Jerry Rawlings is widely cited by working class people as one of Ghana’s best presidents. But his legacy is complicated by his association with political violence as a military dictator, and by his ushering in of neoliberalism.
Senegalese activists persevere despite setback
Beyond national elections, the Y’en a Marre political movement is changing Senegalese civic and political life for future generations.
How the left can rescue Nigeria
The last 20 years of liberal democracy in Nigeria have been marred by crises. The next election should be the Left’s target.
Celebrating Binyavanga Wainaina’s queerness
Binyavanga’s fashion sensibility as well as his choices in his memoir, and his essays, will have a lasting impact after he is gone.
There are no bees in Dakar
Dedicated to the memory of the writer’s friend: the rebel and genius, Binyavanga Wainaina.
Our man of the people
Binyavanga Wainaina was a writer who not only produced seminal work, but also contributed to and shaped the African literary tradition into what it is today.