Undoing the Spell
by Ben Verghese. Many of the dominant narratives of the partition focus on events in 1947 – easy-to-caricature leaders, the two-nation theory and the birth of Pakistan. How then do we find ways to duly speak of one land mass being forcibly carved up; of the multiple peoples displaced; of the umpteen lives lost, and uncountable, […]
Which Africa Are We Talking About?
In the era of rapid globalisation the exemplary novelists seem to be those who successfully transcend their homelands and emerge in a place where their work can acquire a universal relevance. In many ways Jamal Mahjoub personifies this condition. He was born in England, raised in Sudan, and has lived in London, Liverpool, Khartoum, South Wales, […]
Shooting From Point Blank Range
Moses Serubiri turns on the television and watches the news unfold, in living and often riotous contradiction, in a programme that has viewers from Kampala to Kansas hooked on the hilarity, the spectacle and the harsh reality of Ugandan politics. In an episode of Point Blank, police officers join in watching a carnival of rioting […]
We almost died thrice…
A letter from Lagos by Wanlov the Kubolor. I dey lie for some hotel room in a venue called Moods for Surulere. This venue, run by a Fanti man from Sekondi who was here before the Ghana-must-go time, has everything from fast food chicken to karaoke to rooms for hire. We came by road from […]
How Close Are You To This Place?
by Karen Press. Where is the heart of darkness? We think we know. It’s the impenetrably savage jungle of ‘the Congo’. It’s the depraved misery of Mr Kurtz. It’s the sweating, terrifying bulk of Marlon Brando. But for Marlow, Joseph Conrad’s faux-naif narrator, darkness begins on a boat moored in the Thames, surrounded by mists that render the city beyond the vessel […]