A tale of two reviews
In the 1960s, two African nationalist magazines shared a name—but declassified files reveal that they were on opposite sides of a literary Cold War.
Culture
False progress
From 2024, the Grammys will feature an award for Best African Music Performance. Is the category a positive step embracing the global popularity of African music, or another homogenizing exotification?
Biko’s children
In their debut EP, the Johannesburg-based experimental jazz group iPhupho L’ka Biko offer a message of hope, resilience and solidarity while drawing from South Africa’s black jazz heritage.
Don’t consume what you sell
A new film by Ery Claver probes the fraught relationship between China and Angola, revealing their differences—and surprising similarities.
Não consuma o que você vende
Um novo filme de Ery Claver investiga a tensa relação entre China e Angola, revelando suas diferenças—e surpreendentes semelhanças.
Reading List: David Tonghou Ngong
Ahead of the publication of his new book on Leopold Senghor and African political theology, the author selects books that inspired his writing process
Transient literatures and maps
During apartheid, literary magazine 'Staffrider' flourished from its ability to represent multiple social visions. However, it struggled to achieve the same in democratic South Africa.
Laughing through despair
Faced with many crises, including unemployment and a rising cost of living, Angolans are turning to memes to express their political discontent.
Where is Angola?
A Netflix series about Queen Njinga, one of Africa’s most historically significant rulers, should be cause for much celebration. But the resulting production largely disregarded what Angolans themselves think of their country’s history and culture.
Onde está Angola?
Uma série da Netflix sobre a Rainha Njinga, uma das governantes historicamente mais importantes da África, deve ser motivo de muita comemoração. Mas a produção resultante desconsiderou amplamente o que os próprios angolanos pensam sobre a história e a cultura de seu país.
Memory and forgetting
Almost 30 years since South Africa’s first democratic elections, apartheid can sometimes seem like a distant past. However, three new films interrupt both the temptation to forget and to selectively remember.
Projecting radicalism
Noni Jabavu was one of South Africa’s most trailblazing writers. Her commitment to elite ambivalence makes it difficult to hail her as a black feminist icon.
Inventing our own fictions
For Binyavanga Wainaina, writing about Africa means to to write honestly, benching any attempts to categorize our lived experiences in language that could never accommodate them.
To honor my father
On Father’s Day, an ode to Namballa Keïta, a nurse, soldier, and seemingly ordinary man, who worked tirelessly to promote education in newly independent Mali.
Mandela’s Black Marxism
Nelson Mandela is deified everywhere. But typically missing is an account of his early years, when he insisted that Marxism be responsive to South African conditions.
The bittersweet pursuit of liberation
Ismay Milford’s new book takes us into the world of anticolonialism, giving us a rich account of the struggles of a cohort of activists from east and central Africa.
Pat Robertson’s Africa
The ultra-conservative American televangelist Pat Robertson has died. As poisonous as his influence on American politics was, Robertson’s legacy in Africa is even more cynical.
The wounds that burst open
Writer, filmmaker and activist Tsitsi Dangarembga entwines the troubled story of herself and her country Zimbabwe in the book of essays, 'Black and Female.'
Reading List: Pedro Monaville
Pedro Monaville selects key texts that helped shape a new book on Congolese student-driven left nationalism in the aftermath of Patrice Lumumba’s assassination.
A slow emancipation
What peanut trading in late 19th century Senegal tells us about the fine line between slavery and freedom.