Poets Are Hurting: Lesego Rampolokeng in Conversation with Mafika Gwala
Mafika Gwala emerged as a significant writer in the 1970s during his association with the black South African Student Organisation and the Black Community Programmes in Durban. In 1973 he edited Black Review, and his short stories, essays and poems have been published in numerous journals and anthologies. His poetry collections include Jol’iinkomo (1977) and No More Lullabies (1982). […]
Why music is better than photography
Why music is better than photography: An argument in two parts by Sean O’Toole [1] “Hey boy, stand there. Between Sonny and Miriam. Yes… no, more to your left. Your left, boy… that side. What’s wrong with you, are you stupid like?” The young man in the pencil tie shuffles into place. Slowly, very slowly, something begins to cohere. A photo, […]
AF 888
AF 888 – a letter from above the Mediterranean Sea by Christian Botale Molebo* Air France Flight 888: Paris-Kinshasa, 29 August 2013, departure time: 9:45. A Congolese woman is being deported. I am in seat 36J, economy class. The deportee looks to be 30 or so. She is escorted by French police in civvies and armbands: a woman […]
The Meaning of Being Numerous
A Letter from Beirut by Lina Mounzer. The man who sets up the bomb is long gone before it goes off. It is a standard, 50kg TNT explosive, fitting neatly into the trunk of a car. If the car is heavy enough – a 1982 Mercedes, blue-green, say, like this one – the slight heaviness of […]
L’impossible n’est pas Camerounais!
Kangsen Feka Wakai traces personal lineage, and the often blurred and disputed spaces, spoken tongues and hybrid forms in which national identity is claimed, contested, co-opted and celebrated in the country of his birth. The wrinkled folds that encircled my maternal grandfather’s eyes did not divulge much – they thickened when he smiled, but assumed a […]