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?
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It’s only a matter of acceleration now
By Chronic on 1 July 2014 in Books & Oration, Chronic, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies, Systems of Governance
New Bush, Old Ghosts
Cyber crime is a burgeoning business in West Africa, despite often primitive […]
When You Kill Us, We Rule
By Chronic on 18 June 2014 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies
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 […]
The End of Elections
by Paula Akugizibwe Jose Saramago’s Seeing is no Arab spring. Revolutionary […]
On Mermaids and Microwaves
Diriye Osman is a storyteller – on page, stage and canvas. His […]
A Brief History of Presidential Libraries
by Stacy Hardy Léopold Sédar Senghor, Aimé Césaire and George Pompidou were friends […]
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 […]
The skin I’m in: Afro-Bengali solidarity and possible futures
Naeem Mohaiemen reviews Vivek Bald’s Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of […]
Paris-Algiers, Underground Class
by Mustapha Benfodil It’s romance landed me this job. I am a mailman […]
“I’m Not An African Writer, Damn You!”
by Akin Adesokan One is an African writer, or rather one becomes […]
Number 11
Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño muses on writing, borders, Latin American literature and the […]
The Hyphenated African
Teju Cole takes a break from Twitter to speak to Sean O’Toole […]
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 […]
Shoes
Shoeless and bible blacked, Sandile Dikeni recounts childhood kickabouts on uneven playing fields […]
A Three Point Shot from Andromeda
When not teaching white boy’s how to shuffle, acting Tuff, or fixing […]
Americanah and other definitions of supple citizenships
By Chronic on 8 October 2013 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Chronic, Faith & Ideology, Media & Propaganda
Yemisi Aribisala reads the new novel by Nigeria’s ‘woman of letters’ and encounters […]
Onitsha Republic
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu visits the sprawling city of his childhood in the […]
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
By Chimurenga on 8 October 2013 in Archive, Books & Oration, Healing & bodies, Systems of Governance
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 […]
Washing Henry – a letter from New York
by Dave McKenzie As a memento of the process, I received a […]
Che
First published in 1968 in Buenos Aires, the biography of Ernesto “Che” […]
Death by Memory [of Freedom]; Truth & Reconciliation
By Chronic on 5 August 2013 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Healing & bodies, Systems of Governance
A tryptych in honour of Steve Biko. Firstly, Graeme Arendse, as his alter-ego Ramgee, presents In […]
Who’s Free, Who’s Not, Who Was, Who Wasn’t, and Who’s Dead: And, Are You Sure You Know Which Way Is Up?
A Letter from Istanbul by Ed Pavlic Trayvon remains underground, to my […]
Suspect Sammy
A Letter from Toronto by Andrea Meeson It’s another Monday morning after another […]
Memento Mori
A Letter from Harlem by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts. When I came home from abroad, […]
Senselessness
Stacy Hardy reviews the English translation of Horacio Castellanos Moya‘s Senselessness (New Directions, 2008, Katherine […]
Threatening the Hormonal Stability of Imbeciles
Born in Honduras in 1957 and raised in El Salvador, Horacio Castellanos Moya is […]
Name Death & Text
Achille Mbembe unpicks the assassination, disfigurement, and attempted degrading of Ruben Um Nyobè. Ruben Um […]
Damballah
Audio/visuals from AfroSonics-sis, Harmony Holiday, originally produced for Fence Books‘ podcast series. “Loose Tracklist” Weldon […]
Dance of the Infidels presents: Nollywood Confidential
starring: Zeb Ejiro, Ajoke Jacobs, Tunde Kelani, and Aquila Njamah Andy learned […]
Authority Stealing: The business of crime writing in Kenya, India and Nigeria
Kenya In pursuit of some scriptwriter talent, Billy Kahora discovers that […]
10 Questions For Mukoma Wa Ngugi
A Beautiful Blonde is Dead. This image is the spark that ignites […]
Godhead
Excerpted from Godhead, Ho Che Anderson‘s science fiction novel. A kind of class struggle […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
Bajove Dokotela
By Chronic on 14 April 2013 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Chimurenga Magazine, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies
Let the good Dr [Philip Tabane] inject you in three ways; music, words, video. Records for Bajove Dokotela mix selected and blended by Ntone Edjabe, quotes from Sello Edwin Galane’s thesis.
The night Moses died (Parts one and two)
The night Moses died (Part one) by Nicole Turner The night […]
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 […]
Call for an Archive of AfroSonics
By Chimurenga on 13 April 2013 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Chronic, Healing & bodies, Media & Propaganda, Music, PASS
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 […]
Letters to Hillbrow
As part of a walk-in research project inspired by the novels Welcome […]
Is Biko’s legacy being besmirched?
By Chimurenga on 8 April 2013 in Archive, Books & Oration, Media & Propaganda, Systems of Governance
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 […]
Notes Towards A Question of Power
Pieces, notes really, fragmentary speculations,remnants, a sense of the feminine under assault, […]
50 Years Ago: Zeke in Nigeria
Es’kia Mphahlele and the Anti-Apartheid Association of Nigeria Moritz Isaac (Manu) Herbstein […]
Diary Of A Bad Year
Diary Of A Bad Year: President Mbeki’s Letters to the Nation by […]
Must You Stage an Escape?
Stacy Hardy reads the work of two itinerant poets – Johannes Göransson […]
New Bushs Old Ghosts
Cyber crime is a burgeoning business in West Africa, despite often primitive […]
An Introduction to Arithmetic Sorcery
Cyclonopedia – Complicity with Anonymous Materials (re.press, 2008), a “theoretical-fiction novel” by Iranian […]
The Test
By Chimurenga on 9 March 2013 in Archive, Books & Oration, Healing & bodies, Media & Propaganda, Systems of Governance
Read the following text carefully: “Know thyself, thus says the quotation […]
Childhood Snapshots
by Bill Kouélany We are on a bus – my sister, […]
Discoveries of Timbuktu
Ciraj Rassool I am not a scholar of Timbuktu or Arabic or […]
In Search of Yambo
Christopher Wise Yambo Ouologuem, the Malian author of Le devoir de violence […]
It Begins with a Place
t would be a very idiosyncratic Harlem! Years ago when I was a teenager I did a course where they had us make maps of places, highlighting what drops out just based on personal experience of a place. I think of this book very much like that – a personal map of the places I went or that caught my eye.
Asia in My Life
I have always felt the need for Africa, Asia and South America to learn from each other. This south-to-south intellectual and literary exchange was at the center of the Nairobi Literature debate in the early sixties, and is the centerpiece of my recent theoretical explorations, in Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing.
The Spark of Life: Where Novels Come From
wani? Manuscript Project, Kwani Trust’s new literary prize for African writing. Including contributions from Aminatta Forna, Leila Aboulela, Ellen Banda-Aaku and Helon Habila, the articles offer advice and inspiration for developing your novel manuscript over the next 2 months. In this, the first article in the series Aminatta Forna explores where the ideas for novels.
Ten Pieces of Advice for the Writing Life
Read to become a better writer. This sounds like “eat to become stronger” and in a way reading is the food of the creative process. Read for all the reasons a reader reads but also read for inspiration, read to be influenced, read in order to pick up tricks and techniques, read in order to answer the questions, “How on earth did the author pull this off? How on earth did he/she get away with this?”
Emerging from the Dark?
Mafika Gwala speaks to Andrea Meeson about not living in the shadows.
Sortir de la grande nuit. Essai sur l’Afrique décolonisée
By Chimurenga on 8 December 2010 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Media & Propaganda, Systems of Governance
Norbert N. Ouendji interviews Achille Mbembe before Afropolitanism (circa 2010) « Sortir de […]