• 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.

• Wamuwi Mbao

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.

• Ari Gautier

Writer Ari Gautier owes his own blend of mythology, Dalit consciousness, and surrealism to literary stylists such as Amos Tutuola, Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo.

• Julian Manyika

A new book weaves science, history, philosophy and personal narrative in a refreshing and more globally inclusive look at depression.

• Shobana Shankar

Shobana Shankar's new book, 'Africa, India and the Spectre of Race' (Hurst/Oxford, 2021) explores this complicated history.

• Ran Greenstein

The Israel/Palestine system meets the definition of apartheid in international law, but presents different challenges for the campaign against it than was the case for the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

• Zoë Wicomb

Zoë Wicomb thinks she knows why black South African readers appreciate Damon Galgut’s Booker Prize-winning novel 'The Promise' (2021) whilst many white readers were turned off by it.

• Chinelo Okparanta

The Nigerian-American author of the novel "Harry Sylvester Bird" talks to the Radical Books Collective ahead of her appearance at their book club.

• Farah Bakaari

The British-Somali poet Warsan Shire’s audacious yet uneven volume of poetry captures the quiet loneliness of African immigrant lives in the West.

• Patrice Nganang

The novelist on 3 books he returns to: by Wole Soyinka, Ibn Khaldun, and a third on the history and the system of writing of an early 20th-century Cameroonian king.

• Nicky Falkof

What happens to the contemporary explosion of moral panics, urban legends, and other paranoid narratives when they manifest in a place like South Africa?

• Paul S. Landau
• Hlonipha Mokoena

The ANC and Nelson Mandela’s turn to violent anticolonial struggle in the early 1960s, is the subject of a new book by historian of South Africa, Paul Landau.

• Véronique Tadjo

To address a difficult and traumatic subject like Ebola, the writer Véronique Tadjo turned to oral literature for inspiration.

• Omole Ibukun

Beyond the social media firestorm over journalist Trish Lorenz’s book about #EndSARS, it is worth engaging in the debate about wider representation in movement building and protest.

• Faisal Ali

The novelist Nadifa Mohamed complicates Britain’s troubled, racist legal history through the personal tale of one otherwise insignificant person, a Somali immigrant to Cardiff in Wales.

• Lizzy Attree

The Kiswahili Prize works to undermine the marginalization of African languages in literary culture. An interview with one of its founders.

• Radical Books Collective

The Radical Books Collective teams up with Africa Is a Country to bring you progressive conversations about books, literature, and publishing on this platform.

• Khadija Abdalla Bajaber

The author of 'The House of Rust' tells us all the little things (from foods to films) that get her imagination going.

• Wangui Kimari

The lesson from political economist Rok Ajulu’s academic work and activism: it’s not enough to change the “tenants,” but fight to change both the “state” and all of its houses.

• Megan Robertson

A new book presents an empirical challenge to the myth of South Africa as the “pink capital” of Africa and contributes to building an archive of queer, African, and religious narratives.