Calling Mrs Museveni
[hr] A Letter from Kampala By Kalundi Serumaga ‘I want to talk to mummy.’ With those words, the edifice of a commitment to the emancipation of Uganda’s women should have come crashing down. It did not, but its inherent hollowness was certainly confirmed in my mind. The words were spoken by one Miria Matembe, a […]
Both Sides Then and Now
By Rustum Kozain Perhaps too short for the reading pleasure it provides, the 50-year old classic Ambiguous Adventure follows the life of Samba Diallo, a child of the Diallobé elite. In many ways parallel to its Senegalese author’s life, the story tracks Samba from his days at the Glowing Hearth Koran school to being a […]
Authority Stealing in Nigeria
Akin Adesokan confronts the ‘real world of Nigerian politics’ and comes to grips with the ‘universal seductions of authoritarian power’ that make for ever-thickening plots. Two-point-eight billion naira, Oil money issy missing Dem set up enkwayary Dem say money no loss-y o… Money no loss, dem shout again Enkwayary come close o. E no finish? […]
Authority Stealing in India
Rakesh Khanna explores the web of Indian-language crime fiction publishing, in which colonial legacies and twisted plots in realms of sorcery and subterfuge are not limited to the page. Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, and quite a few other Indian languages have long traditions of crime fiction, yet very little of it has ever been translated or […]
A Petition for Mongo Beti
Patrice Nganang recalls the duel between politics and the literary sphere in 1990s Yaoundé – a time when the campaign for ‘democracy’ exposed the chiasmus that is the Cameroonian intelligence, and the words of Mongo Beti ignited a movement for dissent, return and reconstruction. What I remember most about the years of fire is that […]