Put your crown on your head
A new exhibit of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s life and work explores the influences of his family and the African world on his visual sensibilities and identity.
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Sean Jacobs
Sean Jacobs, Founder and Editor of Africa is a Country, is on the faculty of The New School and a Shuttleworth Fellow.
On safari
Our annual publishing break coincides with the 10th anniversary of the Marikana massacre. We are planning a public event on August 20th to reflect on its legacies.
A big African literature prize in an African language
The Kiswahili Prize works to undermine the marginalization of African languages in literary culture. An interview with one of its founders.
Inhabiting the shapes and sounds and patterns of other people
May 21 marks the anniversary of the writer and commentator Binyavanga Wainaina’s untimely death in 2019. He was 48.
Where is black feminism?
The first book collection dedicated to contemporary Black South African feminist perspectives has seen the light. One of the editors breaks down the content.
A question of color
Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu’s novel “The Theory of Flight” may be the first to take seriously Zimbabwe’s complicated race politics, beyond the obvious black vs whites.
The art of football
Why should people be invested in a football game in a bubble called the art world? “Exhibition Match,” a multifaceted installation, explores responses to this question.
Not so quiet resilience
David Samaai was the first black (and coloured) South African to play at Wimbledon in 1949. He was 21 years old. He did so before the Americans, Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe.
The Russians are here
Russia’s war with Ukraine has inaugurated the new Cold War most feared, and some wanted. Which side are you on?
The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!
Where do African countries fall in the threatened invasion of Ukraine by Russia? Will African states side with the US or their European allies or with Russia?
Letters of recommendation
On the South African-born anthropologist John Comaroff and the political economy of silence in academia.
There’s a metaphor in there somewhere
Thoughts on the conclusion of the 2021 African Cup of Nations.
Are strongmen or liberal democracy our only choices?
With the recent series of military coups, especially in West Africa, what is left for the future of politics on the African continent?
Back from Safari
If you hadn’t noticed, we were on our annual break from just before Christmas 2021 until now. We are back, including with some inspiration.
Growing pains
For all the grief Afropunk gets, including its commercialization and appetite for expansion, it still manages to bring people, mostly black, together over two days for a pretty great party.
Bono’s vanity
This #ThrowbackThursday piece from 2007 on Vanity Fair’s famous “Africa” issue, makes for fun, at times depressing, reading of the debates we hopefully left behind.
On Safari
Every year, around this time, we take a month long break from publishing. We need it.
When the war is over
In his new book, the Ugandan academic Mahmood Mamdani argues that breaking cycles of violence requires collective action. He finds hope in the unfinished project of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle.
The politics of vaccines
On the latest episode of AIAC TV, we discuss the COVID 19 vaccine with Achal Prabhala and Indira Govender. Watch now on Youtube, Facebook and Twitter.
On Safari
What a year. Stay safe, wear a mask, social distance and when the vaccine becomes available where you are, get vaccinated.