Elegy for Robo The Technician
Lesego Rampolokeng's tribute to an old school pioneer and one of the key builders of the South African hip hop scene.
Lit
Thinking About Genocide
An extract from Mahmood Mamdani's seminal study, 'When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda."
The Dangers of a Single Book Cover
The historian Simon Stephens discovers a meme in the book covers of novels set in or with African themes.
To discover Stuart Hall
Hall was a skilled storyteller, who placed his memory, his deep sense of alienation, and his autobiography at the heart of his theory and politics.
Latin America is a country
Gabriel Garcia Marquez wanted to counter the notion that everything in Latin America can be understood only through Euro-American lenses.
The FBI’s Hustle
The contradictions of U.S.'s domestic and international policies manifested by its wars on drugs, terror, and the country's Black communities.
When Chinua Achebe went to Scandinavia in 1988
It is striking that that the topics his hosts discussed with Achebe in those days are still animating us.
How To Kill The Nigerian Publishing Industry
Nigeria's Minister of Finance imposes a 62.5% tariff on imported printed books, where previously there has been none.
Was Sherlock Holmes a racist?
The real question is of course about the racism of Sherlock Holmes's creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
To revolutionize a culture
The writer on Frank’s Archive, based on her father's records, that explores the different functions of books, power and knowledge.
When Salazar met one of Lumumba’s murderers
António Oliveira Salazar founded Portugal’s New State dictatorship in 1933. Some Portuguese still remember him fondly.
Nigerians in Space
In Deji Olukotun’s novel, a Nigerian NASA scientist — on behalf of all colonized people — wants to return moon rocks that Neil Armstrong brought back to earth.
The most important public intellectual of the last 50 years
In gratitude to Stuart Hall, a socialist intellectual who taught us to confront the political with a smile.
Ponte City
The 54-storey building in Johannesburg, built in the 1970s, is the tallest residential building on the continent, and subject of a new photobook.
I am a homosexual, mum
A lost chapter from Binyavanga Wainaina's memoir, "One Day I Will Write About This Place," dated 11 July, 2000, the day his mother passed away.
Somali first, Muslim second, gay third
The melodic world alive in the work of Somali author Diriye Osman.
The Book of North African Literature
Pierre Joris and Habib Tengou edit a book about the multiple beginnings, traditions and genealogies in the literatures of the many languages of the region, and the region's diasporas.
A window into South Africa’s jazz history
The first full color photographs of the vibrant, underground jazz scene that flourished in South Africa in the 1960s.