PORTRAIT OF MYSELF AS MY FATHER
A CONVERSATION WITH NORA CHIPAUMIRE Born in Mutare, Zimbabwe, and based in New York, iconoclastic choreographer and experimental dance practitioner Nora Chipaumire uses her work to think through representations of the African black woman’s body – the signs that have made it legible to the world (signs, of course, are always saturated with politics) in art, aesthetics and performance. A disruptive energy courses through her […]
CHEIKH ANTA DIOP – AN AWAKENING
Ayesha Harruna Attah recounts a voyage of discovery that begins from a point of ‘cultural envy’ – a realisation of how little African writers know of their myths, the rich archive of knowledge of the continental pantheon – and ends in an understanding of a ‘shared continuity’ over millennia of African cultures, histories and philosophies. […]
To Defend and to Question
Zinedine Zidane has described him as “the greatest footballer of all” and he holds the record as the most capped player in the history of the France national team with 142 appearances between 1994 and 2008… But Lilian Thuram is also an outspoken political commentator, an activist and an intellectual. Achille Mbembe spoke to him in […]
English Language Visa
by Keorapetse William Kgositsile Some years back, when writers like Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Wole Soyinka started arguing about the necessity of African writers writing in African languages, I was one of those who did not consider the issue serious enough to even be interested in participating in the debate as a practicing writer. I […]
An Essay on Uneven Ribs: a Prelude
by Taban Lo Liyong [from Frantz Fanon’s Uneven Ribs ] 1 Bill Shakespeare 2 Did create a character called Caliban, 3 The unwilling servant of Prospero, 4 And this Caliban would have had Miranda 5 —She who is a marvel to behold—a girl 6 So much in need of love and for whom 7 Ferdinand […]