Kai Friese interrogates the colonial fantasy that lives on in the sententious philanthropy of ethical tourism.
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How Third World Students Liberated the West
In a twist to mainstream tropes of radical student movements of the 1960s, and their impact on the history of political thought and action, Pedro Monaville argues that the terrains of the Third World, and particularly the history of student movements in Congo, are vital to explore if we are to makes sense of how that period informs the present.
Not in My Neighborhood Film Screening
Saturday, April 27, 2019 at 8 PM Keleketla! Library,6 Verwey Street, Troyeville, […]
PASS presents DUMAMA & KECHOU ft. MADALA ‘BAFO’ KUNENE
The Pan African Space Station will host DUMAMA & KECHOU for an […]
Sankomota: An Ode in One Album – A Reflective Essay
“Perhaps outside of Fela’s Egypt 80, very few music bands have managed […]
Pungwe Sound Trails Live On PASS
Pan African Space Station hosts Pungwe Sound Trails with @machirirobert Thursday, 06 […]
PASS is going to Australia!
From 11 -13 April, as part of an exhibition hosted by Monash […]
P.A.S.S. HARARE
From 9 – 12 November, the Pan African Space Station (PASS) landed […]
Dislocations in the Congolese World of Sound
“Dislocation” is how Congolese rumba historians describe the incessant splinterings that are […]
TO REFUSE THAT WHICH HAS BEEN REFUSED TO YOU
Fred Moten and Saidiya Hartman sit down to talk about the temporal […]
EVERY JOURNEY IS A READING
By Stacy Hardy My cover is easy. There are a million roles […]
AT HOME WITH ZEBULON DREAD/SWAMI SITARAM
For over a decade, the man born as Elliot Josephs terrorised Cape […]
The Impossible Death of an African Crime Buster
Spearman… Lance Spearman – the name synonymous with the intrepid hero of […]
Myriem
an excerpt from Myriem by Boris Boubacar Diop … Fire embassies, it […]
Home draft July
—— THE INVENTION OF […]
Home Means Nothing to Me
Tinashe Mushakavanhu talks about his mapping project, “Home Means Nothing to Me,” […]
Chimurenga Library on Circulations
The Chimurenga Library is an ongoing invention into knowledge production and the […]
kill me already – a letter from Luanda
Kiluanji Kia Henda After several years working as a visual artist with […]
Zidane’s Melancholy
Zidane watched the Berlin sky, not thinking of anything, a white sky […]
New Trade Routes: Soccer Cities
We make our own maps tracing the new trade routes for the […]
To Defend and to Question
Zinedine Zidane has described him as “the greatest footballer of all” and […]
Zidane, a 21st century portrait
Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parenno’s ambitious 2006 cinematic collaboration, Zidane, a 21st […]
A Secret History of Mr. George Weah
Writing with a view from Yaoundé, Kangsen Wakai tracks football star George […]
Staffriding the Frontline – An Essay by Lesego Rampolokeng
May 2008 Down from a couple years beyond 30/30. it was the […]
The Divine World of Making Things with My Hands
A conversation with Jackie Karuti by Bongani Kona Jackie Karuti (1987) is […]
Some African Cultural Concepts By Steve Biko
This is a paper given by Steve at a conference called […]
The Hunger Games
In an age of security, the politics of what and how we […]
Dear President Museveni
By Isaac Otidi Amuke I have debated about writing this for days, in […]
Pan African Activism Meets Mamdanisation
Theory and practice have been butting heads at Makerere University’s Institute of […]
Bread of Life
Commercial bread contains additives to accelerate production and to improve the look […]
Calabar Winch
By Akin Adesokan I When the goddess of happy accidents stumbles on […]
Rented Grave: Looking beyond the rural-urban dichotomy
Commonplace readings of Africa narrate the village as a segregated space, its […]
You Can’t Get Lost in the Samoosa Triangle*
By Rustum Kozain The triangle is geometry’s favourite form. Circles, rectangles, squares, […]
Marikana
On 16 August 2012, the South African Police Service opened fire on […]
Debt and Study
Against the proliferation of capitalist logistics, governance by credit and the management […]
Screaming Through the Galaxy
Jamaican-born poet, musician and visual artist Femi Dawkins a.k.a. Jimmy Rage, explores pain […]
Corpse Exhibition
In Hassan Blassim’s short story, The Corpse Exhibition, terrorism is no longer reliant on […]
A Long History of Prince’s Hairstyles
By Gary Card This Illustration features in the July 2014 […]
Reform and Revolution: The Destruction of the University
In the fall of 2015, universities across South Africa were engulfed by […]
Preliminary Notes for a Mediterranean Manifesto
By Rasheed Araeen Once the Mediterranean becomes a great centre of communication, of […]
A Pan African Circle of Artists
By Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi In June 1991, Krydz Ikwuemesi, then a third-year art student […]
Ayinde Barrister: Tribute to a True Exponent
By Akin Adekosan The setting was a night party somewhere in Old […]
The Sahara is not a Boundary
Ziad Bentahar is an assistant professor of French and Arabic at Towson […]
It Can Only Go Up From Here
By Nisreen Kaj For a long time, I was sure Lebanon was […]
The African Affairs Bureau
By Helmi Sharawy I have pointed out in the past that the three […]
Jeune Afrique Map
Co-founded in 1960 by Bechir Ben Yahmed, the weekly magazine Jeune Afrique […]
On the Meaning of the Timbuktu Manuscripts
By Shamil Jeppe Timbuktu is symbolic. I mean it’s a place, but […]
Under Nelson Mandela Boulevard
A Story About Cape Town’s Tanzanian Stowaways By Sean Christie Images by David […]
Under the Caine Bridge
by Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire 2000 There are two rivers of Literature, so-called […]
Calling Mrs Museveni
A Letter from Kampala By Kalundi Serumaga ‘I want to talk to […]
Both Sides Then and Now
By Rustum Kozain Perhaps too short for the reading pleasure it provides, […]
Authority Stealing in Nigeria
Akin Adesokan confronts the ‘real world of Nigerian politics’ and comes to […]
The Scandal
by Suren Pillay During the past 10 years I have seen reports […]
How the Attacks were Planned
by Maris Gabriela Carrinho Aragao This map features in the Burnin’ and A-Lootin’ section […]
I Think I’ll Call it Morning
by Bongani Kona Penumbra Songeziwe Mahlangu Kwela Books, 2013 Sometime in […]
The Last King of Africa
Brother Leader, global agitator, anti-imperialist revolutionary, megalomaniacal renegade. The former Libyan leader […]
Creative Industries as Underdevelopment
Are the creative industries turning the tide against urban development in the […]
African War Machines
This map features in the new Chronic, an edition in which […]
Gateway
A video-work from Berni Searle‘s “Black smoke rising” trilogy; the title alluding to the […]
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 […]
Propaganda and Politics tunnel vision history of art activism in South Africa
The important contribution of the Black Consciousness Movement to art activism in […]
AF 888
AF 888 – a letter from above the Mediterranean Sea by Christian Botale […]
Palestine Journey
In February 2005, Ishtiyaq Shukri’s novel The Silent Minaret, won the first European […]
Searching for Augusto Zita
From the Namib desert to an interrogation room on US soil, Victor Gama tracks Augusto […]
Visioncarnation
by Orijit Sen Orijit Sen is […]
The Black Guru
Gael Reagon meets the spirit formerly known as Zebulon Dread. On Friday […]
Masquerade
Michael Jackson alive in Nigeria Featuring the maverick Ejiogbe Twins Photographed by […]
The cosmic lives and afterlives of Zebulon Dread
byAchal Prabhala Part 1: Elliot Josephs Elliot Josephs was born in 1958 […]
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 […]
Obi’s Nightmare
by Jamón y Queso translated by David Shook […]
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 […]
“Nice Nice” Will Get You Nowhere
Boniface Mwangi is a Kenyan photographer who pulls no punches in using […]
A Brief History of Presidential Libraries
by Stacy Hardy Léopold Sédar Senghor, Aimé Césaire and George Pompidou were friends […]
Will the Centre Hold?
In South Africa’s platinum belt, life and politics are as hard-scrabble as […]
Happy Valentine’s Day
Exactly twenty five years ago today, Salman Rushdie received an unusual Valentine: a […]
Method After Fela
by Akin Adesokan “You reckon a guy just goes and cuts […]
Fifty Years Of African Decolonisation
by Achille Mbembe (translated by Karen Press) Here we are in 2010, fifty […]
In Praise of Complexity
by Martin Kimani Adéwálé Àjàdí is a contrary brother striving to live based […]
Translations – A Call For Proposals
This call is published in the December 2013 edition […]
Woza Moya
Maakomele R. Manaka revisits a soundtrack of his dreams, long and rhythmic […]
‘Nation Is A Skin Stretched Over The Bones Of The State’
Jon Soske struggles to pin down Hamid Parsani, the elusive, mercurial Iranian archaeologist, […]
A Letter from Home
by E. C. Osondu My Dear Son, Why have you not been […]
Paris-Algiers, Underground Class
by Mustapha Benfodil It’s romance landed me this job. I am a mailman […]
I Travel with the Dead
Sudirman Adi Makmur spends an inordinate amount of time alone or in the […]
The Last Angel of History
Filmmaker, theorist and co-founder of the Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC) John […]
Protected: Tawfiq Saleh: To Rise and Fall on One’s Own Terms
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
A History of Blacks on the Green
In an attempt to dispel the myth that renders black golfers as […]
Setting The Pace is a Small Town’s Big Business
The ‘mystique’ of the Kenyan long-distance runner is to be found not […]
Fuzzy Goo’s Guide (to the Earth)
Playing with words, the original Black Heretic Insider Dambudzo Marechera writes his own rulebook […]
Even the Dead
Jeremy Cronin reports of corrupt apartheid-era games; questioning our (in)ability to remember the […]
Nothing but… Grobbelaar
A line-up of football stories wouldn’t be complete without Simon Kuper. In a […]
Ready, Willing & Able
Lolade Adewuyi profiles one of the continent’s most successful football coaches – […]
Shoes
Shoeless and bible blacked, Sandile Dikeni recounts childhood kickabouts on uneven playing fields […]
You’re… Terminated
Under the parental shadow of Table Mountain, children play on the streets […]
Stickfighting Days
A good sport? Olufemi Terry summons up the spirit of (K.Sello Duiker’s) Ah-zoo-ray […]
A Three Point Shot from Andromeda
When not teaching white boy’s how to shuffle, acting Tuff, or fixing […]
Say What You Mean
Vocabulary and translation, exercises, games — lessons — from Karen Press for you to get your […]
Onitsha Republic
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu visits the sprawling city of his childhood in the […]
Depth of Field
Depth of Field (DOF) collective, a group made up of six Nigerian […]
Neo Africanus: In Teju Cole’s World
Teju Cole, author of the award winning book Open City, recently announced […]
I Have Always Meant to Fail
Isoje Chou knows the road is long, winding and full of mythical, […]
How to be a Nigerian
Peter Enahoro a.k.a. Peter Pan’s How To Be A Nigerian was first […]
A Corpse and its Jurisdiction – a letter from Lagos
Akin Adesokan tropes on the detective genre after he stumbles on an […]
When We Hear the Name of President
Nigerian poet Tanure Ojaide evokes a language of high stakes, hi-jinx, and […]
George Osodi
George Osodi is a photographer from “the oil-rich Niger Delta region”. His images […]
Lagos Underground
In the 1930s, Harry Beck published a map of the London Underground […]
Lagos: A Pilgrimage in Notations
Having lived away from Nigeria for most of his adult life – […]
Mining Sounds: Lagos – Cairo
Emeka Ogboh‘s art works require audiences to hone their listening and hearing skills. Turning […]
Bantu Serenade
an excerpt from ‘Bantu Serenade’ by Ntone Edjabe (featuring Naila Belvett) … […]
Washing Henry – a letter from New York
by Dave McKenzie As a memento of the process, I received a […]
Altourism – Where Altruism Meets Adventure
Post Kony fall-out fatigue? Relax, pack a bag and take a break in other […]
Laugh it Off
From: “Mandisi Majavu” To: chimurenga@panafrican.co.za Subject: laugh it off/young capitalists/samething? Below is […]
Interactions: A Strategy of Difference and Repetition
Interactions Interactions is an edited excerpt from filmmaker, writer and artist Aryan […]
The story of a South African firm
In this edited extract from their book, Ethnicity, Inc., Jean and John […]
The First Lady Syndrome
Mama Chantal Biya Yves Mintoogue* traces the nepotism and political patronage that […]
Manufacturing the post-election peace: A reporter’s 2013 election diary
Parselelo Kantai watches as NGOs, the media and the state rally together […]
A Civil Society Of African States
Paula Akugizibwe assumes observer status at the African Union and finds the […]
Che
First published in 1968 in Buenos Aires, the biography of Ernesto “Che” […]
America Will Always Blame…
Rigo 23, born Ricardo Gouveia, is a Portuguese muralist, painter, and political […]
Howl Marikana
Announcing his intentions with a howl that echoes Ginsberg, Aryan Kaganof offers […]
Dead Cow Spreads Fear and Rumour in Lagos Suburb
Jide Adebayo Begun reports from Lagos. On 9 May the residents of […]
Dance of the Infidels presents: Nollywood Confidential
starring: Zeb Ejiro, Ajoke Jacobs, Tunde Kelani, and Aquila Njamah Andy learned […]
Godhead
Excerpted from Godhead, Ho Che Anderson‘s science fiction novel. A kind of class struggle […]
Three Men, A Fence & A Dead Body
Sean O’Toole travels to the northern reaches of Limpopo where South Africa […]
Everyday is for the Thief
An excerpt from Teju Cole‘s novella exploring the spectrum of crimes, wrongdoings, misdemeanours, International […]
I Smoked A Spliff With Jesus Christ
I smoked a spliff with Jesus Christ last night. Then leaned over […]
WHO’S CALLING?
Parker Bilal is the pen-name of Jamal Mahjoub. Born in London and […]
Who Killed Christopher Okigbo
1.Night/Outside At sea. Mythic times There is a storm. We see wooden […]
Guns, Girls and Gentle People
The Afflicted Yard proudly proclaims that it is “A non-registered member of […]
Pulp!
In the Indian hinterland, crimes of passion happen every single day, and […]
A Fieldguide for Female Interrogators
by Coco Fusco (illustrations: Dan Turner) This graphic story previously […]
What’s Next
Socially conscious rhymes and hipster swag; sexy dance moves and magical mbira; […]
Home and away
Niq Mhlongo recently launched his new book Way Back Home in his […]
The way back home
There are many ways back home. In South African novelist Niq Mhlongo‘s […]
Way Back Home excerpt
South African novelist Niq Mhlongo has been hailed as a spokesperson for […]
The Way Back Home Article
The Way Back Home On the death of a close relative, Niq […]
Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955-1989)
Photographs by Rotimi Fani-Kayode. These photos first appeared in print in Chimurenga Vol. 4: Black […]
We Used To Dance
Sandile Dikeni reviews We Used To Dance, an album from Andile Yenana. Listen. […]
Relaxing
Okello Sam, a dance and theatre artist (amongst other things), examines the […]
Graveyards, monuments and African Studies
by Nicole Sarmiento. “I have argued that the problem with this course is […]
Achebe The Native Intellectual
There Was A Country, Chinua Achebe’s autobiographical account of the Nigerian Civil […]
Moses’ outro
Does life begin at 40? That’s the time signature Moses Taiwa Molelekwa […]
Ten paragraphs of Music Criticism
More Brilliant Than the Sun? Kodwo Eshun discusses ten paragraphs of music criticism. […]
The night Moses died (Parts one and two)
The night Moses died (Part one) by Nicole Turner The night […]
Unchain the art
Gwen Ansell maps the distance between words and music, fiction and autobiography, […]
Kin La Belle
Yvonne Owuor takes a pilgrimage to Kin La Belle and finds a […]
To Be or Not To Bop
To Be or Not To Bop by Amiri Baraka I was […]
The anti-art of Kongofuturism
In the multidisciplinary lifework of Bebson Elemba, Eléonore Hellio discovers the mind […]
Call for an Archive of AfroSonics
The collective improvisations of black America – and their profound impact on poetry and sound – are near impossible to find in the annals of US academe. In fact, their absence is as stark as the control of archiving is white, writes Harmony Holiday.
Imprinting Afrosonics
The collective improvisations of black America – and their profound impact on […]
Beautiful Voices – a call for AstroandAfrosonics recordings
In the spirit of National Poetry Month in America, Harmony Holiday‘s AstroandAfrosonics project […]
Language Games
For poet Karen Press opposites are already united; they depend on each […]
Letters to Hillbrow
As part of a walk-in research project inspired by the novels Welcome […]
Is Biko’s legacy being besmirched?
In October 2002, 25 years since Stephen Bantu Biko‘s death, poet James Matthews penned […]
Monica Maxwell and Samson Botsotso
Scamming the scammers? Though a buzzing of charades, of tall tales, of […]
50 Years Ago: Zeke in Nigeria
Es’kia Mphahlele and the Anti-Apartheid Association of Nigeria Moritz Isaac (Manu) Herbstein […]
Bra Tebs talks
Was Bra Tebs’ “4 Blokes & 1 Doll” show the highlight of Cape […]
Diary Of A Bad Year
Diary Of A Bad Year: President Mbeki’s Letters to the Nation by […]
All Roads Lead to Hendrix
Greg Tate‘s epic Hendrixian map hyperlinked to the hilt. As all roads […]
Walking through walls
Eyal Weizman reports on military tactics known as ‘walking through walls’ where […]
Cover Story
He’s been described as the “founding father of African literature”, an author […]
When history is suspended
(In memory of Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave) by Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa I […]
Must You Stage an Escape?
Stacy Hardy reads the work of two itinerant poets – Johannes Göransson […]
San Pedro V: The Hope I Hope
Identity, politics, rock ‘n roll, soap operas and sentimental songs; humor, hysteria and […]
New Bushs Old Ghosts
Cyber crime is a burgeoning business in West Africa, despite often primitive […]
The Afflicted Yard: The Rock
In 2004, the famously anonymous British artist Banksy visited Jamaica, and met Peter Dean Rickards, […]
EU fortifies its mission on North African frontline
Supported by Libya and Tunisia, the European Union is ringing the Mediterranean […]
Migration Business is Good Business
Jean-Christophe Servant argues that while Africa is being welcomed into the pool […]
Secret Cities
Göran Dahlberg writes that cities in and of themselves are becoming more […]
La Frontera
Klas Lundström finds himself in an isolated corner of the Amazon jungle […]
Salut Deleuze!
Culled from a comic book tribute to, and intellectual biography of, Gilles Deleuze […]
Did You Kiss the Dead Body?
Two in one: firstly Rajkamal Kahlon introduces her project, Did You Kiss the Dead Body?, then […]
An Introduction to Arithmetic Sorcery
Cyclonopedia – Complicity with Anonymous Materials (re.press, 2008), a “theoretical-fiction novel” by Iranian […]
The Life and Death of Media
There are thousands of people who are paid to invent and publicise […]
The Boys are Doin’ it!
Fela is dead and so is his anti-materialist political message. Modern Afropop […]
Uncertainty in Cuba after the Death of Hugo Chávez
As the world bids adiós to Hugo Chávez, Ivan García (of Desde La Habana) reports on […]
Moving ‘White Man’s Deads’ is no second hand business
With no right to protection from the states between which they trade […]
52 Niggers
By Stacy Hardy. Julius Eastman had a way of walking. He had […]
The Death of Jacob Dlamini
Political analyst, Jacob Dlamini, argues that the death of another so named […]
The Test
Read the following text carefully: “Know thyself, thus says the quotation […]
Under the rainbow rays
Dathini Mzayiya‘s new exhibition Onder die reёnboog strale (Under the rainbow rays […]
Chicken Core: The Rise of Kings
SporeDust is a young animation studio, still a rare species in the […]
Dr Satan’s Echo Chamber
Reggae, technology and the diaspora… Louis Chude-Sokei documents the transatlantic (un)making of […]
The Adventures of Dr Evil in Dakar
President Abdoulaye Wade recently claimed intellectual property rights of the “African […]
Not Yet Uhuru
Ugandan journalist and activist, Kalundi Serumaga, reflects on his time as a political […]
The Warm Up
The xenophobic violence sweeping many communities in the past weeks is not […]
Voudou Priestess Madame Evonne Auguste
Voudou Priestess Madame Evonne Auguste spoke to Sokari Ekine last August, in […]
Folk Dancing For Beginners
Karen Press (He sets the tone) In my country the president rises […]
Do Right Women: Black Women, Eroticism and Classic Blues
By Kalamu ya Salaam 1. I’m going to show you […]
Black Like Us
Tunde Giwa recalls the comics of 1970s Nigeria with a nod to […]
Somewhere between a scream and a lullaby
In a city where the boundaries between life and death are laid […]