Queenstown
By Sandile Dikeni The grass in Queenstown was pink in 1996. Or, at least, so it seemed to Antjie Krog, one bright winter morning after days of dark skies when a feeble footed sun tried, in vain – to pierce obstinate clouds that shrouded the small Eastern Cape town. Queenstown was dark for most of […]
Season’s Greetings
By Rayyane Tabet On the morning of 1 December 1960, thousands of employees working for the Trans-Arabian Pipeline Company received a greeting card inside the envelope that contained their pay cheque. On the front, big bold letters announced the coming holidays and wished them “Seasonʼs Greetings”. The message on the back read: “From another plane […]
Ayinde Barrister: Tribute to a True Exponent
By Akin Adekosan The setting was a night party somewhere in Old Yaba, Lagos, in February or March 1993. I was sitting backstage with the fuji musician Alhaji (Chief Dr) Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, still in his forties, but by now self-described as “Alhaji Agba” (Grand Old Alhaji), and was having quite a task getting him […]
Jeune Afrique
By Moses Marz In 1968, Béchir Ben Yahmed launched his first attempt at establishing an anglophone version of Jeune Afrique by producing annual “Reference Volumes on the African Continent”. The books are up to 450 pages thick and are presented as essential business guides produced by an “impartial team of journalists”. In 1972, Ben Yahmed […]
Souffles
By Toni Maraini The first issue was thin, but it responded “to an imperative demand”. Soon it reached 100 pages. Khaïr-Eddine had by then migrated to France and his name does not figure in the comité d’action, but his presence was assured by his poems. Haunted and solitary, Khaïr-Eddine (whose mother tongue was Berber) had […]