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A Corpse and its Jurisdiction – a letter from Lagos
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
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 […]
Memento Mori
A Letter from Harlem by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts. When I came home from abroad, […]
Speech to the Science Graduation Ceremony of the University of Witwatersrand, 2008
Good Evening. I will use my own life history tonight to argue […]
Home and away
Niq Mhlongo recently launched his new book Way Back Home in his […]
Senselessness
Stacy Hardy reviews the English translation of Horacio Castellanos Moya‘s Senselessness (New Directions, 2008, Katherine […]
The way back home
There are many ways back home. In South African novelist Niq Mhlongo‘s […]
Threatening the Hormonal Stability of Imbeciles
Born in Honduras in 1957 and raised in El Salvador, Horacio Castellanos Moya is […]
Way Back Home excerpt
South African novelist Niq Mhlongo has been hailed as a spokesperson for […]
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 […]
Achebe The Native Intellectual
There Was A Country, Chinua Achebe’s autobiographical account of the Nigerian Civil […]
10 Questions For Mukoma Wa Ngugi
A Beautiful Blonde is Dead. This image is the spark that ignites […]
Moses’ outro
Does life begin at 40? That’s the time signature Moses Taiwa Molelekwa […]
Godhead
Excerpted from Godhead, Ho Che Anderson‘s science fiction novel. A kind of class struggle […]
Ten paragraphs of Music Criticism
More Brilliant Than the Sun? Kodwo Eshun discusses ten paragraphs of music criticism. […]
Bajove Dokotela
Let the good Dr [Philip Tabane] inject you in three ways; music, words, […]
The night Moses died (Parts one and two)
The night Moses died (Part one) by Nicole Turner The night […]
Everyday is for the Thief
An excerpt from Teju Cole‘s novella exploring the spectrum of crimes, wrongdoings, misdemeanours, International […]
Unchain the art
Gwen Ansell maps the distance between words and music, fiction and autobiography, […]
I Smoked A Spliff With Jesus Christ
I smoked a spliff with Jesus Christ last night. Then leaned over […]
Kin La Belle
Yvonne Owuor takes a pilgrimage to Kin La Belle and finds a […]
WHO’S CALLING?
Parker Bilal is the pen-name of Jamal Mahjoub. Born in London and […]
To Be or Not To Bop
To Be or Not To Bop by Amiri Baraka I was […]
Reading Fred Ho
A jazz suite in the key of red Gwen Ansell and Salim […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Forest and the Zoo
The Forest and the Zoo* (Aryan Kaganof with Johnny Mbizo Dyani) […]
Diary Of A Bad Year
Diary Of A Bad Year: President Mbeki’s Letters to the Nation by […]
Cover Story
He’s been described as the “founding father of African literature”, an author […]
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
Read the following text carefully: “Know thyself, thus says the quotation […]
Once There Were Humans
In the hills above Kingston, Jamaica Annie Paul unpacks some baggage in […]
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 […]
Sortir de la grande nuit. Essai sur l’Afrique décolonisée
Norbert N. Ouendji interviews Achille Mbembe before Afropolitanism (circa 2010) « Sortir de […]