Johnny Dyani offers a method to the Skanga (black music family) in this extended conversation with Aryan Kaganof. Photographs by George Hallett.
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Author Archive | Chronic
Guilt Trips
Kai Friese interrogates the colonial fantasy that lives on in the sententious philanthropy of ethical tourism.
Never, ever let any monster abuse your science!
Renfrew Christie’s Speech to the Science Graduation Ceremony of the University of Witwatersrand, 2008
Translating Tram 83
Roland Glasser meets author Fiston Mwanza Mujila in Paris while getting to […]
You Have No Power Here
Karen Press reviews three first collections from publishing house uHlanga that add welcome breadth to the range of South African poetry
The Trajectory of a Street Photographer
My quest for an explanation for this omission in my history education made me appreciate the magnitude of the crime… for the struggle against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. – Santu Mofokeng
Remembering Biafra
In 1968, Nigeria’s finance minister, agricultural produce mogul Obafemi Awolowo declared: “Starvation is a legitimate weapon of war, and we have every intention to use it against the rebels.”
Imagined Waters
Through the poetry of its mariners – the singers of its rivers […]
Searching for Rotimi- A Letter From London
Rotimi Fani-Kayode died 29 years ago (21 December 1989), in exile, after […]
The Pharaoh’s New Clothes
Its location, vocation, and publication intended to speak to a politicised Third World imaginary.
Avions De Nuit
By Pumle April In the Cameroonian imaginary “Avions de nuit” (night planes) […]
Qalqalah
Through the fictional character Qalqalah, Sarah Rifky, grapples with the question what is an institution? Speaking […]
Kaveena
In Catherine Anyango’s adaptation of Boubacar Boris Diop’s Kaveena, the boundary between nightmare and […]
Afro Horn
Forged from a rare metal found only in Africa and South America, […]
Yakhal’ Inkomo
An explosive bellow from the spiritual heart of the black experience, saxophonist […]
Major Gentl and the Achimota Wars
Set in 2020, Kojo Laing‘s 1992 dark ecological sci-fi novel envisions a condition […]
The Muezzin and I
By Rustum Kozain Adamu One night at a local hangout in my […]
Time to Bleed
An extended conversation between Aryan Kaganof and Walter Mignolo What I […]
The Art of Suspense
Lidudumalingani Mqombothi revisits the football matches of his childhood, when radio, not […]
Sports Chatter
Simon Kuper discusses the drivel in the drip-feed that is mainstream sports […]
The Lexicon of Love
The language of football is arguably nowhere more verbose and loquacious than […]
Writing Football
By Juan Villoro It’s unlikely you’ll be a fan of any sport […]
The Invention of African Football
Moses März documents his fleeting orbit of the “African” football scene, from […]
A Fine Madness
By Masande Ntshanga Here’s how this starts: halfway through Mishka Hoosen’s debut […]
Climbing- A Letter from San Francisco
By Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko Loss is life’s only language. Moving from mask to […]
God Has Written a Miracle Into My Body
By Wendell Hassan Marsh “Do you believe that Islam is the truth?” a […]
The Upper Room
By Florence Madenga 4pm: Opening Prayer We are waiting for Apostle Debbie […]
The University of Soweto
Frank B. Wilderson draws from his memory of student protests in 1993 […]
The Mission of Forgetting
Joshua Craze offers a sobering analysis of the fantasy that is the […]
“That Guy No Be Ordinary”
Yemisi Aribisala grapples with the real-time significance of the artist Victor Ehikhamenor, one of his most celebrated works, “The Flower of a Girl”, and the nonsensical brandishing of the banal in the context of Nigerian art as big business.
Reform and Revolution at the University of Lovanium
In this essay on the gestation, articulations and manipulations of student politics […]
Politics of Betrayal
Using historian and author Jacob Dlamini’s latest work as a backdrop, Bongani […]
Marcus Garvey is Alive in East Africa
A university in eastern Uganda, named in honour of the pan African […]
How to Approach Heaven
The struggle for freedom is a reckless, foolish and sacrosanct adventure – […]
Four Days in June
By Moses Marz President Omar al-Bashir is looking out of the window of […]
Focusing the Fashionable Mind
The parochialism and pretence emanating from some South African human rights organisations […]
Come On Up, Sweetheart
In an “intensely private encounter” with the personal letters of James Baldwin, […]
A Brief History of Student Protests
By Stacy Hardy “Bile bums my inside!/ I feel like vomiting! For […]
Fighting Shadows
Lidudumalingani Mqombothi hails from a place where the game of ukuqula is […]
Adult Alphabet
‘R for rent, S for sex, T for evermore taxing things….’ Rustum Kozain‘s […]
Sexing Africa, Again
Dominique Malaquais spins together Lil’ Kim, burkas, Muslim women, Somali Mata-Haris and […]
No Easy Truce Between Africa’s Most Powerful Brothership
By Tolu Ogunlesi On a per-person basis, South Africans drink four times […]
The Picture
By Suren Pillay The picture swayed from side to side like a […]
Inaudible I
By Salim Washington and Winston ‘Mankunku’ Ngozi Winston ‘Mankunku’ Ngozi: Ja, well, […]
Giant Steps – from a film by Aryan Kaganof and Geoff Mphakati
By Aryan Kaganof & Geoff Mphakati We’re only preparing you to get […]
Dear Dr. Schwab, Queen of Jordan
Binyavanga Wainaina responds to an invitation to participate in Young Global Leaders 2007
Folk Dancing for Beginners
By Karen Press (He sets the tone) In my country the […]
Hanging Participle
By Anna Kente I am becoming. I have the proof. Documents, photos, evidence. […]
Justino
By Pedro Rosa-Mendes The news spread through the camp: Justino knew then […]
Dansons Donc le Zouglou
By Henri-Michel Yere Déscolarisé In 1980s Côte d’Ivoire, exclusion from the schooling […]
The Chimurenga Library (with PASS pop-up) at Performa, New York
Through next week, we’ll occupy the Performa 15 Hub in New York with the […]
Sermon on the Train
By Isabel Hofmeyer 11.45 am on a Tuesday morning in October and […]
Lagos, Lagos
By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Chidera’s taxi crawled over Third Mainland Bridge, towards […]
The Amazing Career of Passport Number B957848
By Akin Adesokan (For Larry Siems & Aimee Liu) I The wait […]
The Chimurenga Library at The Showroom, London.
For our first UK presentation, Chimurenga will infiltrate The Showroom’s building in […]
Creating Theatre: A George Hallett Photo Essay
“Exile demands contemplation because it is unavoidably real for those who experience […]
Pan African Space Station POP-UP at Fondation Cartier, Paris
Pan African Space Station POP-UP at Fondation Cartier, 261 boulevard Raspail, 75014 […]
a half century thing & because the night
Come join us at our factory to launch Lesego Rampolokeng’s A Half […]
Rumblin’
By Dominique Malaquais Tell It To The World April 1st 1974.[1] Before […]
Variations on the Beautiful in the Congolese World of Sounds
by Achille Mbembe; translated by Dominique Malaquais
Archie Shepp’s Shirt Suggests
By Dominique Malaquais and Cédric Vincent
Season’s Greetings
By Rayyane Tabet On the morning of 1 December 1960, thousands of […]
The Sahara is not a Boundary
Ziad Bentahar is an assistant professor of French and Arabic at Towson […]
The African Affairs Bureau
By Helmi Sharawy I have pointed out in the past that the three […]
Jeune Afrique
By Moses Marz In 1968, Béchir Ben Yahmed launched his first attempt […]
Souffles
By Toni Maraini The first issue was thin, but it responded “to […]
Al Fatah
By Anthony James Ratcliff Al Fatah was an extremely popular organisation at the […]
Lotus Magazine
By Nida Ghouse In the wake of Youssef El-Sebai’s death, the streets of Cairo swelled in protest. […]
Ibrahim El-Salahi
By Michael Vasquez Ibrahim El-Salahi had a show at the Tate Modern […]
Hiwar
By Michael Vasquez The journal that the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) published […]
Qibla
Qibla leader Imam Achmad Cassiem in conversation with Khalid Shamis. “When the […]
Jihad as a Form of Struggle in the Resistance to Apartheid in South Africa
By Na’eem Jeenah Although Muslims form about 2 per cent of the South […]
Dispossessed Vigils
Mourning and Regeneration in Inner-City Johannesburg[1] By Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon “Only the conscious horror […]
“The contemporary art in this country is flowing, but it needs direction.”
A conversation between performance artist, Jelili Atiku and former Director of the […]
IRM de la ville de Douala
by Maud De La Chappelle To Didier À Douala, on nomme les […]
Authority Stealing in Kenya
In pursuit of some scriptwriter talent, Billy Kahora discovers that academic mantras, […]
Under the Caine Bridge
by Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire 2000 There are two rivers of Literature, so-called […]
Both Sides Then and Now
By Rustum Kozain Perhaps too short for the reading pleasure it provides, […]
African Cities Reader Three is Out Now
The African Cities Reader is a biennial publication that brings together contributors […]
The Scandal
by Suren Pillay During the past 10 years I have seen reports […]
Home is Where the Mic is – Cape Town launch
This Thursday, April 2, at the PASS studio in Cape Town, the […]
I Think I’ll Call it Morning
by Bongani Kona Penumbra Songeziwe Mahlangu Kwela Books, 2013 Sometime in […]
The Shifting Fortunes of a Performing Poet
Post-apartheid poetry and its makers have witnessed the commodification of the art […]
Black Man in the White Suit
A Letter from Cape Town by Kiluanji Kia Henda. In 2008, the […]
Mapping The Last King of Africa
This map features alongside a text by Olivier Vallée in the new […]
In a Time of Boko Haram
by Elnathan John. I. DRESSES Beneath the oil-stained, flattened pillow that Mansir sits […]
Re-Membering the Name of God
Wendell Hassan Marsh maps the trajectories of Islam as it evolved in […]
Bordering on Borana
by Dalle Ebrahim. It was 2011 and I was seated in a taxi […]
The Power of Green Crayons
Agri Ismaïl recalls growing up off the map – his Kurdish identity […]
Pwani Si Kenya
Despite years of development promises from Kenya’s central government, the Coast remains […]
The Last King of Africa
Brother Leader, global agitator, anti-imperialist revolutionary, megalomaniacal renegade. The former Libyan leader […]
Secret Countries
This map features in the new Chronic, an edition in which […]
How to Eat a Forest
Billy Kahora recounts a journey into Kenya’s Mau Forest, where he confronts […]
Living Dangerously in Petroluanda
António Tomás picks through the post-independence architectural ruins of Angola’s capital city […]
The Institute
Cultural institutes are considered effective instruments in foreign policy for any nation-state […]
Manufacturing African Celebrity
Jesse Weaver Shipley* explores the power of celebrity in contemporary African pop culture […]
Soft Power Desire Machines and the Production of Africa Rising
Alongside texts by Jesse Weaver Shipley, Moses März and Oribhabor […]
Becoming Chimamanda’s Boy
by Oris Aigbokhaevbolo. I was part of the 2014 Farafina Creative Writing Workshop […]
Neopats and Repats
This map features in the new Chronic, an edition in which […]
Creative Industries as Underdevelopment
Are the creative industries turning the tide against urban development in the […]
All That is Solid Melts into PR
Mark Fisher speaks to Bongani Kona about the social, economic and cultural totality of late capitalism, the pervasive cynicism in which we seem to be mired, the omnipresence of PR and the possibility of countering it all by re-igniting a belief in the public good.
Reviews in Brief
by Stacy Hardy. Our Lady of the Nile Scholastique Mukasonga (transl. […]
Operation Protective Edge
by Paul Wessels. The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of […]
Portrait of the Artist as a Daughter
by Ed Pavlić. “Where material is absent, dialectics is groundless.” – James Snead, […]
Licking Dirty Hands
by David Shook. In the tradition of German poet Heimrad Bäcker, who turned […]
Undoing the Spell
by Ben Verghese. Many of the dominant narratives of the partition focus on […]
The Undeveloped Intellectual in Zombie-land
by Ibrahim Farghali. This is Rakha’s second novel after his début, The Book […]
Breaking the Rules Beautifully
by Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire. “Breaking the rules attracts implications, Jennifer.” I overhear British […]
Men and their Dogs
by Gwen Ansell. Leonardo Padura is perhaps best known outside his native Cuba […]
Miniature Metamorphoses
by André Naffis-Sahely. In his dotage, Henry Kissinger has come to resemble Emperor […]
The Other Brother
by Bongani Kona. At the centre of Masande Ntshanga’s debut novel, The Reactive, […]
A Geography of Times and Affects
by Marissa Moorman. An Angolan friend of mine refuses to read Ondjaki. […]
And the Books Lived Happily Ever After
by Harry Garuba. If Amos Tutuola had not lived, and written stories in […]
Which Africa Are We Talking About?
In the era of rapid globalisation the exemplary novelists seem to be […]
Shooting From Point Blank Range
Moses Serubiri turns on the television and watches the news unfold, in […]
Beneath the Underdog
Fighter, soldier, poet, arguably the PR-unit and embodiment of the Economic Freedom […]
New Oil Old Lamps
The old Arab adage that “Cairo writes, Beirut publishes and Baghdad reads” […]
Shifting Gulfward
The apparent demise of the millennia-old Arab cultural centres and the rapid […]
Life After Oil
Jeremy Weate explores the cultural politics of the petro-based economy in Nigeria, […]
We almost died thrice…
A letter from Lagos by Wanlov the Kubolor. I dey lie for […]
The Bite and the Embrace
A Letter from Malabo by Recaredo Silebo Boturu. I’m writing from here in […]
The Face: Cartography of the Void
Chris Abani has lived in several places and been assumed to be […]
New Trade Routes
This features in the new Chronic, an edition in which […]
After Oil Water
This features in the new Chronic, an edition in which we […]
African War Machines
This map features in the new Chronic, an edition in which […]
The Chronic Presents a New Cartography for Africa
Since its launch in 2011, every edition of The Chronic has engaged […]
The Internet is Afropolitan
Achille Mbembe discusses the history and horizon of digital communication and identity […]
Yambo Ouloguem: Postcolonial Writer, Anti-Wahhabist Militant
Christopher Wise recalls conversations and texts of the Malian author, whose deep […]
How Close Are You To This Place?
by Karen Press. Where is the heart of darkness? We think we know. It’s […]
Situation is Critical
Jeremy Weate moves from text to context in search of the current […]
How to write about Africa
by Boniface Mongo-Mboussa Serpent à Plumes’ republication of Yambo Ouologuem’s Le Devoir de violence […]
In Suburbia
Suburban South Africa is glowing. The sun is up, the trees are […]
Preliminary Notes for a Mediterranean Manifesto
Connecting ancience and modern roots/routes Rasheed Araeen redraws the boundaries and limits of identity. […]
The Chronic – mapping the new – soon come
“In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the […]
Gateway
A video-work from Berni Searle‘s “Black smoke rising” trilogy; the title alluding to the […]
Alex killers are ‘proud’ of attacks on foreigners
Gcina Ntsaluba reports from where Wally Serote wrote: “When I lie on your breast […]
10th Caderno Sesc_Videobrasil
Press release: On February 5, 2015 (Thursday), at 8pm, Associação Cultural Videobrasil and Edições Sesc […]
What Follows? The State of Black Collectivity in the Year of the Sheep
Continuing to sing a vital and urgent message of black collectivity, Harmony Holiday writes from […]
Between Worldliness and Exile Homelessness and Cosmopolitanism
With essays by Akin Adesokan, Imraan Coovadia and Ngugi wa Thiong’o bound together, Sean O’Toole examines idiosyncratic writing […]
Writivism is underway
Press release: Writivism, a flagship project of Center for African Cultural Excellence […]
Dispatches from Beirut
Comic artist and musician Mazen Kerbaj keeps a visual diary of a week […]
In the Listening Room with Neo Muyanga
This Thursday (January 15), Pan African Space Station present “Revolting Songs”, a concert-lecture […]
The African Renaissance Hoer-o-scope for Politicians
by Zebulon Dread ARIES Your best bet at survival is not a […]
The Story of an African Farm
The Chronic visits wine farms across the Boland area of the Western Cape and […]
The Alternative is at Hand
Working within the black radical tradition, Fred Moten and Stefano Harney frame a […]
Kangsen Feka Wakai Can’t Breathe
Transition are calling for responses to the latest sweep of murders by police of unarmed black […]
‘Let’s face it: we’re in over our heads. We need the white folks to come back.’
Renegade Cameroonian filmmaker and theorist Jean-Pierre Bekolo Obama pulls no punches about his disaffection […]
Beyond Oppression-Liberation-Maendeleo
by Parselelo Kantai It may have been the economist David Ndii who coined […]
Ankara Press, new romance imprint from Cassava Republic Press
A new romance imprint from Cassava Republic Press is now public: Ankara Press. Press […]
Propaganda and Politics tunnel vision history of art activism in South Africa
The important contribution of the Black Consciousness Movement to art activism in […]
The New Thing
Out of the silence, the crevices, cracks and forgotten places of Cape […]
Midway Between Silence and Speech
The art and incarnation of Justine Gaga explores the multi-layered and emotionally […]
Exitour as Rhizome
“Why did we embark on this insane trip?” Having journeyed together from Douala to […]
Une Hommage à Goddy Leye
With his imagination, sharp wit and all-round uncontournable wholesome beautyness, Goddy Leye has […]
The Beautiful Beast
by Goddy Leye This still from Goddy Leye’s […]
The G.Spot Protagonists
by Goddy Leye I am sitting in front of the Cologne cathedral, amazed by […]
Boda Boda Lounge Project: Nov 21 – 23
Chimurenga are participating in the Boda Boda Lounge Project from Friday November 21 […]
Black Skin, White Ass
Hydroquinine, bleach, lime juice: take your pick. Each of them will lighten […]
Honouring Somaliness
Binyavanga Wainaina and Diriye Osman sit down in south London to speak of honouring Somaliness, navigating the globe as a homeless writer, freedom and love.
Philatelic Pan Africanism
The Otolith Group, founded by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in 2002, uses […]
Writers Boot Camp comes to Cape Town
Writers Boot Camp, Cape Town: 24 – 29 November 2014 (press release) Writers’ […]
Poets Pressing Record(s)
by Harmony Holiday Privacy is dead and the word itself sounds a […]
Mythscience Records
Mythscience Records, a label arkiving necessary voices for us all to learn from. Poet Harmony […]
This is a pigment of my imagination
Looking like a ‘Negro’ in India and searching for a connection has […]
How Kenya Exploded In My Heart
A letter from Harare by Petina Gappah I once lived in a […]
Buru Buru
Billy Kahora reflects on the state of the ‘estate’ of his Nairobi […]
Out of sight and out of mind in High Care
Mike Abrahams recently spent seven weeks as an involuntary patient at Valkenberg […]
Floyd Mayweather and Improvised Modalities of Rhythm
by Steve Coleman What makes boxing the sweet science is not two […]
Mining for Minds
Jean-Pierre Bekelo presents a film financing project offering payment in raw materials: “Mining for Minds”. […]
The Case of Sipho Mchunu
by Bongani Kona In her brilliant review of Didier Fassin’s book, When Bodies Remember: […]
Chronic Apartheid Litigation
Ronald Suresh Roberts argues that litigation in US courts against multinational companies […]
Poets Are Hurting: Lesego Rampolokeng in Conversation with Mafika Gwala
Mafika Gwala emerged as a significant writer in the 1970s during his […]
Accordion Cowboys
Tseliso Monaheng explores famo, a popular form of accordion music that blends […]
Why music is better than photography
Why music is better than photography: An argument in two parts by Sean […]
AF 888
AF 888 – a letter from above the Mediterranean Sea by Christian Botale […]
Ba re e ne re Literature Festival
We’ll be in Maseru next week to celebrate new and old writing […]
Palestine Journey
In February 2005, Ishtiyaq Shukri’s novel The Silent Minaret, won the first European […]
L’impossible n’est pas Camerounais!
Kangsen Feka Wakai traces personal lineage, and the often blurred and disputed […]
Searching for Augusto Zita
From the Namib desert to an interrogation room on US soil, Victor Gama tracks Augusto […]
The Black Guru
Gael Reagon meets the spirit formerly known as Zebulon Dread. On Friday […]
Swami Sitarama Dasa in conversation with Gael Reagon
To launch the new Chronic (graphic issue), we’ll be having a special […]
A New Myth
Illustrator Nolan Oswald Dennis’s ongoing collaboration with Johannesburg-based performance art ensemble The Brother […]
Masquerade
Michael Jackson alive in Nigeria Featuring the maverick Ejiogbe Twins Photographed by […]
The Chronic (July 2014)
For the new issue of Chimurenga’s pan African gazette, the Chronic, the […]
11 YRS OF DEMONCRAZY!!!
11 YRS OF DEMONCRAZY!!! O nee Got.!! Got!!! Got!! ! I can’t […]
Historieda
In his letter from Agolam, Yvan Alagbé riffs off a recent visit […]
Motshumi’s Country
For more than three decades, Mogorosi Motshumi has drawn comics, cartoons and […]
It’s only a matter of acceleration now
This is how the earth is arranged, or this is how the kora arranged and made the universe, and songs of numbers and words made souls…. Are you ready to interview Youssou N’Dour?
New Bush, Old Ghosts
Cyber crime is a burgeoning business in West Africa, despite often primitive […]
When You Kill Us, We Rule
Audre Lorde‘s poem, “The Black Unicorn”, is woven into rhetorical charcoal drawings by […]
Sketches of ‘Trane
Atang Tshikare is a artist and illustrator based in Cape […]
Obstacles
by Anna Kostreva You know those days when it’s so hard […]
Not only our land but also our souls
Andile Mngxitama challenges historical and contemporary rhetoric that positions land theft in […]
The End of Elections
by Paula Akugizibwe Jose Saramago’s Seeing is no Arab spring. Revolutionary […]
A Brief History of Throwing Shit
by Rustum Kozain. Shit, muck, drek, kak. Faecal matter. We humans have a […]
On Mermaids and Microwaves
Diriye Osman is a storyteller – on page, stage and canvas. His […]