First as tragedy, second as farce
NoViolet Bulawayo’s novel 'Glory' forcefully evokes the Zimbabwean political landscape but struggles to stretch itself beyond the documentarian, vacillating between the journalistic and fictive.
Blog
Breakfast at Mobutu’s
Jacques Bongoma was a young Congolese progressive who became a close advisor to Joseph Mobutu after the country’s 1965 coup.
Tiptoeing across the minefield of neutrality
Recent US-South Africa relations appear to be firmly stalled in the cul-de-sacs of imperial or sub-imperial diplomacy.
Reading List: Duncan McEachern Yoon
The author’s new book wants to clear away some of the misunderstandings that dog Africa and China relations. Here, he catalogs the books that guided him.
The land and the sea
Communities whose land is being targeted for exploration by oil and gas companies are increasingly using the courts. South Africa points to good lessons for social movements about allying with the law.
The gossip bros
The age of the podcasters as thought leaders—think #PodcastandChill and The Hustlers Corner—is upon us.
Resistance and commodification
A scholar of Black Brazil discusses the past, present, and future of the antiracist movement, in the run up to this year's presidential elections.
Reading List: Mutt_Lon
The books that the author, a Cameroonian novelist, has been reading share an ethics of political engagement, a quest for identity and cultural inventory, and an ear for the voices and harmonies of African languages.
Afrobeat is bigger than Fela
In the second of five articles on Afrobeat music in South America, political scientist Simon Akindes writes about the all women and nonbinary Brazilian band, Funmilayo Afrobeat Orquestra.
Claim no automatic support
Where can the left look to inspiration in the wake of defeat? Our first letter from our new deputy editor.
Where laws and guns cannot reach
South African poet Don Mattera, who died in July, was the real deal—preferring to throw his lot in with the ignored and the undervalued. Unsurprisingly, his monumental life and work is undervalued too.
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.