Under the Caine Bridge
by Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire 2000 There are two rivers of Literature, so-called mainstream Literature (Euro-American), and the Other Literature (including African Literature), named after their histories. They come from Europe and America and the rest of the world, from two different histories. They come from swathes and swathes of land in countries with different names, […]
Mapping The Last King of Africa
This map features alongside a text by Olivier Vallée 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 […]
The Last King of Africa
Brother Leader, global agitator, anti-imperialist revolutionary, megalomaniacal renegade. The former Libyan leader has been tagged with all these attributes, and then some. Olivier Vallée* walks us through the web of political and economic strategies that drove Muammar Qaddhafi’s vision for the African continent, and probably contributed to the unravelling of the model and the man. […]
Manufacturing African Celebrity
Jesse Weaver Shipley* explores the power of celebrity in contemporary African pop culture – with its common themes of seduction, aspiration, and desire for unattainable status – but also how celebrity in both content and form is abstracted, recycled and circulated in a globalised market. The MTV Africa Music Awards, more popularly known as the MAMAs, […]
Soft Power Desire Machines and the Production of Africa Rising
Alongside texts by Jesse Weaver Shipley, Moses März and Oribhabor Aigbokhaevbolo, this map features in the new Chronic. In this edition 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 […]