When You Kill Us, We Rule
Audre Lorde‘s poem, “The Black Unicorn”, is woven into rhetorical charcoal drawings by Sandra Brewster, inspired by the conversation between Fela Anikulapo Kuti and Keziah Jones. “When You Kill Us, We Rule” was originally published in print as part of Chimurenga 9: Conversations In Luanda And Other Graphic Stories. Available here.
Obstacles
by Anna Kostreva You know those days when it’s so hard to get out of bed? For many teenagers around the world, that’s the biggest obstacle to their everyday movement. But in Johannesburg, things are more complex. A group of South African teenagers at the Afrika Cultural Centre were asked to consider the obstacles they face as […]
Will the Centre Hold?
In South Africa’s platinum belt, life and politics are as hard-scrabble as the earth on which they are contested: natural resources and poverty are plentiful, and support for the ruling ANC is in short supply following the brutal events at Marikana. Kwanele Sosibo travels through the launch of the Economic Freedom Fighters and confronts the […]
Happy Valentine’s Day
Exactly twenty five years ago today, Salman Rushdie received an unusual Valentine: a fatwa from Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini calling for his head. This you already know. But why did India and South Africa ban the book many months before Iran reacted, what does it mean that the book remains sanctioned in both countries today, and […]
I am a homosexual, Mum by Binyavanga Wainaina
(A lost chapter from One Day I Will Write About This Place) 11 July, 2000. This is not the right version of events. Hey mum. I was putting my head on her shoulder, that last afternoon before she died. She was lying on her hospital bed. Kenyatta. Intensive Care. Critical Care. There. Because this time […]