And the Books Lived Happily Ever After
by Harry Garuba. If Amos Tutuola had not lived, and written stories in English, African literature would probably have had to invent him. So central has he been to the story of the making of modern African literature that it is difficult to imagine what or who else would have occupied the unique space he fills […]
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, […]
New Oil Old Lamps
The old Arab adage that “Cairo writes, Beirut publishes and Baghdad reads” is no longer. Instead “the Arab world writes, while Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and Doha decide who gets the big bucks”. Thus argues André Naffis-Sahely, as he explores the contemporary narrative playing out in the land of petro-dollared development, where an Arab literary […]
Shifting Gulfward
The apparent demise of the millennia-old Arab cultural centres and the rapid growth, in their place and across all genres, of Emirates-based investment are raising some questions. Is oil money alone fuelling the contemporary art boom, and in whose interests is the cash being flashed in the name of Arab cultural renaissance? Marcia Lynx Qualey […]
After Oil Water
This features in the new Chronic, an edition in which we ask: what if maps were made by Africans for their own use, to understand and make visible their own realities or imaginaries? How does it shift the perception we have of ourselves and how we make life on this continent? To view in […]