Johnny Dyani offers a method to the Skanga (black music family) in this extended conversation with Aryan Kaganof. Photographs by George Hallett.
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Never, ever let any monster abuse your science!
Renfrew Christie’s Speech to the Science Graduation Ceremony of the University of Witwatersrand, 2008
LAUNCHING MINE MINE MINE
Chimurenga Factory
Thu, 12 Oct 2023 from 6pm
LATEST CHIMURENGANYANA OUT NOW!
THE GARDEN LETTERS OF YVONNE VERA by Tadiwa Madenga
EPISTROPHIES
Saturday, 16 September 2023 from 6pm
Chimurenga Factory (157 Victoria Rd, Woodstock)
CLASS STRUGGLE IN MUSIC
Chimurenga Factory – 157 Victoria Rd, Woodstock
Thursday, 17 August 2023 from 6pm
Notes for an Oratorio on small things that fall
Aditi Hunma reviews the launch of Notes for an Oratorio on Small Things That Fall, the latest offering from Ari Sitas
LATEST IN STORE: WHEN THREE SEVENS CLASH
A collection of writing and images on Zimbabwe, edited by Percy Zvomuya
LATEST IN STORE: CHANTS, DREAMS AND OTHER GRAMMARS OF LOVE
a gedenkschrift for Harry Garuba
CONFESSIONS OF A CLOSET SOYINKA PLAGIARIST
A letter from Ibadan by Harry Garuba
REVIEW: AND THE BOOKS LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER
Harry Garuba reviews reissues of Amos Tutuola’s writings
CHIMURENGANYANA: LA DISCOTHEQUE DE SARAH MALDOROR
This entry in our Chimurenganyana series takes the form of a mixtape […]
THE WRITINGS OF BINYAVANGA WAINAINA
Launching a new collection of writings by the late, great Binyavanga Wainaina
LIBERATION RADIO
an ongoing query on knowledge production via African sound worlds, and long-term research on broadcasting and cultural initiatives by liberation movements across the continent
I’M NOT WHO YOU THINK I’M NOT
Serubiri Moses reflects on Binyavanga Wainaina’s refusal to fit neatly into neat identities.
The Music Mind of Greg Tate: Sonic Syllabus for a Patternmaster
A 5-hour music selection in memory of Greg Tate on his arrival day, October 14 – live on the Pan African Space Station from 6pm SA time
LIBERATION RADIO
We’re proud to present a new edition of “Liberation Radio”
CHIMURENGA@20: ONCE THERE WERE HUMANS
In the hills above Kingston, Jamaica Annie Paul unpacks some baggage in a rare interview with Peter Abrahams, the South African-born writer and ardent Pan-Africanist.
SOUNDGARDEN
a live reading for Bessie Head’s 85th
13 July 2022 from 6pm
IN MEMORIAM: OMOSEYE BOLAJI (1964-2022)
We remember Nigerian-born writer, Omoseye Bolaji (1964-2022), and his immense contribution to the growth of African literature in South Africa, and particularly in the Free State, where he lived.
In conversation with Omoseye Bolaji
In the Free State, the most important and pivotal figure in local black literature has been OMOSEYE BOLAJI. Pule Lechesa spoke with him about his awards, general grassroots writing in the Free State, and Black Writing in general.
CHIMURENGA@20: MONDAY BLUES FOR SANDILE DIKENI
The most recent episode of Stories About Music in Africa is Monday Blues for Sandile Dikeni
Liberation Radio: Cape Town – 15-18 March 2022
Live on PASS: 15th-18th March 2022, 3-6pm
CHIMURENGANYANA: THE FEAR AND LOATHING OUT OF HARARE BY DAMBUDZO MARECHERA (DEC 2021)
by Dambudzo Marechera
Available now at our online store.
Pieces of Dominique
The writings, translations and ideas of our dearly departed friend, comrade and co-conspirator Dominique Malaquais (1964-2021), in Chimurenga
Out of Sight
A short story by Yambo Ouologuem adapted from the French by Dominique Malaquais and Ntone Edjabe.
JOKER’S WILD (SLIGHT RETURN)
By Dominique Malaquais
HOME IS WHERE THE MUSIC IS
The latest addition to the Chimurenganyana series
Translating Tram 83
Roland Glasser meets author Fiston Mwanza Mujila in Paris while getting to […]
You Have No Power Here
Karen Press reviews three first collections from publishing house uHlanga that add welcome breadth to the range of South African poetry
OF WOUNDS, OF HANDS – live on PASS – 08 July 2021
a word/sound documentary by the Insurrections Ensemble, with an introduction by Ari Sitas
EVEN WHEN MY SOUP-CURLERS SLUR BY GEORGIA ANNE MULDROW – OUT NOW!
A limited Chimurenganyana edition of Even When My Soup-Curlers Slur, I Still Keep the Take by Georgia Anne Muldrow is now available.
The Enemy in Her Imagination: A Fable
Rahel first met the young, 11-year old boy, on December 21, 2006. That was the day after the war in Somalia was declared.
BLACK SUNLIGHT – A broadcast for Dambudzo Marechera on his 69th
Remember Glissant
Moses März writes of Édouard Glissant, Martinican, poet and compatriot of the more celebrated Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon
CHIMURENGA CHRONIC – IMAGI-NATION NWAR – OUT NOW!
A new issue of Chimurenga’s Chronic – out now. imagi-nation nwar – […]
PANAFEST, hosted by Chimurenga
A web documentary, audio-video archive and online cartography, that chronicles continuities and breaks, samples and cuts that link four key moments of Pan-African encounter: Dakar ’66, Algiers ’69, Kinshasa ’74 and Lagos ’77.
“The Oppressor Remains What He Is”
Why does it seem that the genocide deniers have perked up? What […]
BECOMING KWAME TURE – OUT NOW!
Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) was viewed by many during the civil rights […]
CHIMURENGA@20: THE BARD OF BLOEMFONTEIN
Achal Prabhala goes to the heart of the Free State literary renaissance with the “deliberately mysterious and prodigiously talented” Omoseye Bolaji.
Nigeria’s Superstar Men Of God
Who needs the God of the bible with his promises of trials and tribulations, crosses and paths of repentance? Yemisi Aribisala listens to the sermons, counts the money, watches the high-flying life of Nigeria’s mega-preachers and wonders.
De l’art de vivre l’art
By Dominique Malaquais
Abbey Lincoln’s Scream: Poetic Improvisation as a Way of Life
We are standing under a glaring spotlight screaming at the tops of our lungs, from the backs of our throats which we grind together to access black blues unwords, thymus against heart, blue in green meridian, that aquamarine plexus that water and sky correct and regulate in us.
RIP PAPA GEORGE
Exile demands contemplation because it is unavoidably real for those who experience […]
They Won’t Go When I Go
A Manifesto/ Meditation on State of Black Archives in America and throughout the Diaspora by Harmony Holiday
How Third World Students Liberated the West
In a twist to mainstream tropes of radical student movements of the 1960s, and their impact on the history of political thought and action, Pedro Monaville argues that the terrains of the Third World, and particularly the history of student movements in Congo, are vital to explore if we are to makes sense of how that period informs the present.
Monumental Failures
By Dominique Malaquais
Reproducing Festac ’77: A secret among a family of millions
Kwanele Sosibo speaks with Ntone Edjabe about the creation of, and thinking behind, the FESTAC ’77 publication.
NEW IN BOOKSHOP
Early in 1977, thousands of artists, writers, musicians, activists and scholars from Africa and the black diaspora assembled in Lagos for FESTAC ’77, the 2nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture.
LEPHEPHE PRINT GATHERINGS 5 – CAPE TOWN
Calling all printmakers and paper-peoples! In collaboration with our comrades at Keleketla! […]
Urbanism Beyond Architecture – African Cities as Infrastructure
Vyjayanthi Rao, in conversation with Filip de Boeck & Abdou Maliq Simone […]
IN THE BOOKSHOP: KINSHASA CHRONIQUES / KINSHASA CHRONICLES
Kinshasa Chronicles is a richly textured encounter featuring seventy artists, most of whom belong to a very young generation, telling tales of one of the world’s most vibrant creative hubs.
Listen to “Sankomota: An Ode in One Album”
On 31 May, we hosted the launch of Phehello Mofokeng‘s reflective essay on Lesotho’s greatest band, Sankomota.
SALUT GLISSANT
“Nothing is true, everything is alive.”
Moses März, imagines a conversation between Edoaurd Glissant and Patrick Chamoiseau about the Philosophy of Relation.
IN MEMORIAM: Binyavanga Wainaina (1971 – 2019)
A friend, a Chimurenga founding father, an award winning writer, author, journalist, chef, lover, a literary revolutionary and an inspiration. We pay tribute.
Colossal KOUROUMA
What could have happened in his head to take literally this type of injunction quite common in lands of Africa? A sense of the word given? The desire to take seriously the hopes of children who usually have little voice? Mystery.
Frantz Fanon’s Uneven Ribs
For me knowledge is very powerful. Any knowledge has claws and teeth. If you don’t see the teeth and the claws then it is useless, then somebody has emasculated it.
POETS WITH GUNS: A CONVERSATION WITH CHIRIKURE CHIRIKURE
Chirikure Chirikure means “that which is far is very far.” He is […]
Search Sweet Country
In conversation with Binyavanga Wainaina, Kojo Laing talks to a future Ghana by exposing its present, full of the jargons and certainties of one dimensional nation building.
The Pharaoh’s New Clothes
Its location, vocation, and publication intended to speak to a politicised Third World imaginary.
Who Killed Kabila
On January 16, 2001, in the middle of the day, shots are […]
New Cartographies
Since its launch in 2011, every edition of The Chronic has engaged with this question: […]
Who invented truth
Tired of truth, I am. And metanarratives and more truth and post colonies.
Where Is This Place
Keguro Macharia asks how might one describe where One Day I Will Write About This Place lives as it travels?
DISCOVERING HOME
by Binyavanga Wainaina(Winner of The Caine Prize 2002) Cape Town – June, […]
Nothing was impossible for a writer like him
Billy Kahora on Binyavanga Wainaina’s Work
Pass Me the Microphone: Phoebe Boswell
Stories and sounds from the Swahili coast… sampling Binyavanga Wainaina’s How to Write about Africa.
WHAT AFRICAN WRITERS CAN LEARN FROM CHEIKH ANTA DIOP
In a testament to Cheikh Anta Diop, Boubacar Boris Diop raises radical views on creative writing, a challenge to what he laments as our literary Sahara.
10 Paragraphs of Music Criticism
Kodwo Eshun discusses selected paragraphs of music criticism, taking in Kim Gordon’s […]
Joe An Essay by Sam Kahiga June 2008
All my life, I wanted to be either a writer or a […]
Civil Lines
An Essay by Achal Prabhala At some point in the 1980s – […]
FOUR GROUND-BREAKING THINGS IN FIVE ISSUES OF CIVIL LINES OR, WAYS TO GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE POSTCOLONIAL SAND
an essay by Vivek Narayanan [Note: while preparing this piece, I benefited greatly […]
Black Images – An Essay by Peter James Hudson
July 2008 The premiere issue of Black Images: A Critical Quarterly of Black […]
The Impossible Death of an African Crime Buster
Spearman… Lance Spearman – the name synonymous with the intrepid hero of […]
The Emperor of Kinshasa’s Street Comics
by Nancy Rose Hunt Beginning nearly fifty years ago, in 1968, Kinshasa […]
Spear: Canada’s Truth and Soul Magazine
by Peter James Hudson November 2010 Spear: Canada’s Truth and Soul Magazine launched […]
Staffriding the Frontline
An Essay by Lesego RampolokengMay 2008 Down from a couple years beyond […]
Staffrider
An Essay by Ivan VladislavićMarch 2008 I joined Ravan Press as a […]
Short Review – The Year of the Rat
Year of the Rat Marc Anthony Richardson FC2/ University of Alabama Press, […]
WRITING AS AN ACT OF GENEROSITY
MAMADOU DIALLO All of our current texts in English or French were, […]
The Making of the Impossible
Review by GWEN ANSELL October: The story of the Russian revolution China […]
PORTRAIT OF MYSELF AS MY FATHER
A CONVERSATION WITH NORA CHIPAUMIRE Born in Mutare, Zimbabwe, and based in New […]
NATIONAL HEROES ACRE II & III
National Heroes Acre II Photographs by Jekesai Njikizanava National Heroes Acre II […]
KÀDDU- THE ECHO OF DISSONANT DISCOURSE
Ibrahima Wane Translated by David Leye When it was published by Présence […]
CHEIKH ANTA DIOP – AN AWAKENING
Ayesha Harruna Attah recounts a voyage of discovery that begins from a […]
To Defend and to Question
Zinedine Zidane has described him as “the greatest footballer of all” and […]
English Language Visa
by Keorapetse William Kgositsile Some years back, when writers like Ngũgĩ wa […]
An Essay on Uneven Ribs: a Prelude
by Taban Lo Liyong [from Frantz Fanon’s Uneven Ribs ] 1 Bill […]
Blame Me On History
Atiyyah Khan is a writer, researcher and arts journalist based in Cape […]
The Sahara Is Not A Boundary
Stacy Hardy is a writer and senior editor at Chimurenga. She is […]
How To Cook Your Husband The African Way
Stacy Hardy is a writer and senior editor at Chimurenga. She is […]
A Letter from a Homeless Prodigal
Emeka Ugwu is a Data Analyst who lives in Lagos, Nigeria. He […]
Penpoints, Gunpoints, and Dreams: A history of creative writing instruction in East Africa
From the earnest hustle of our elders in writing during the 1960s […]
Calabar Winch
By Akin Adesokan I When the goddess of happy accidents stumbles on […]
African Cookbooks and Excess Luggage
By Yemisi Aribisala There is a sense of justice and spirit of resignation […]
The Complete Gentleman
In London Kamwendo’s interpretation of Amos Tutuola’s sly satire of spectral global capitalism […]
The Art of Suspense
Lidudumalingani Mqombothi revisits the football matches of his childhood, when radio, not […]
Writing Football
By Juan Villoro It’s unlikely you’ll be a fan of any sport […]
The Invention of African Football
Moses März documents his fleeting orbit of the “African” football scene, from […]
A Fine Madness
By Masande Ntshanga Here’s how this starts: halfway through Mishka Hoosen’s debut […]
Politics of Betrayal
Using historian and author Jacob Dlamini’s latest work as a backdrop, Bongani […]
Dear Dr. Schwab, Queen of Jordan
By Chronic on 18 November 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Cash & Commerce, Chimurenga Magazine, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies, Media & Propaganda
Binyavanga Wainaina responds to an invitation to participate in Young Global Leaders 2007
Dansons Donc le Zouglou
By Henri-Michel Yere Déscolarisé In 1980s Côte d’Ivoire, exclusion from the schooling […]
Creating Theatre: A George Hallett Photo Essay
By Chronic on 30 September 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Chimurenga Library, Chronic, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies, Media & Propaganda, Music
“Exile demands contemplation because it is unavoidably real for those who experience […]
CAMFRANGLAIS – a lexicon
By Stephane Akoa (translated by Karen Press) Avoir la godasse: avoir le […]
Love and Learning Under the World Bank
Stacy Hardy recounts seventeen stories of the hierarchies, the anti-heroes, the hard […]
Land Homeland
Q&A with Mahmood Mamdani Chronic: Your book Define and Rule: Native as […]
The Sahara is not a Boundary
Ziad Bentahar is an assistant professor of French and Arabic at Towson […]
Jeune Afrique
By Moses Marz In 1968, Béchir Ben Yahmed launched his first attempt […]
Souffles
By Toni Maraini The first issue was thin, but it responded “to […]
Trajectories of the Sudanese Gulf
By Michael Vasquez Hiwar The journal that the Congress for Cultural Freedom […]
Hiwar
By Michael Vasquez The journal that the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) published […]
Qibla
Qibla leader Imam Achmad Cassiem in conversation with Khalid Shamis. “When the […]
Writing the City in a Different Script
The Arabic-Afrikaans Tradition of the Cape By Saarah Jappie A hundred years […]
CHIMURENGA@20: SECULAR STORIES
By Chimurenga on 26 May 2015 in Books & Oration, Chronic, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies, Media & Propaganda
Authenticity counts for something; the confidence that authenticity bestows counts for even more.
The New Reading
By Chronic on 26 May 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Cash & Commerce, Chronic, Media & Propaganda
Some argue that the new media has forever altered our attention span, that the experience of being completely lost and absorbed, an experience they say you only got from a printed book, has disappeared.
CHIMURENGA@20: WAITING FOR WAME
By Chimurenga on 26 May 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Chronic, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies
I am hungry. Tempted. In pain. I reach for the pack. Pop out another capsule. One minute. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. The pain has reduced to a dull throbbing. I am floating.
Authority Stealing in Kenya
In pursuit of some scriptwriter talent, Billy Kahora discovers that academic mantras, […]
Both Sides Then and Now
By Rustum Kozain Perhaps too short for the reading pleasure it provides, […]
Authority Stealing in Nigeria
Akin Adesokan confronts the ‘real world of Nigerian politics’ and comes to […]
Authority Stealing in India
Rakesh Khanna explores the web of Indian-language crime fiction publishing, in which […]
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.
I Think I’ll Call it Morning
by Bongani Kona Penumbra Songeziwe Mahlangu Kwela Books, 2013 Sometime in […]
The Shifting Fortunes of a Performing Poet
Post-apartheid poetry and its makers have witnessed the commodification of the art […]
Black Man in the White Suit
A Letter from Cape Town by Kiluanji Kia Henda. In 2008, the […]
Pan Africanism in Katanga
In the margins of a specific history, in which land and inhabitants […]
Becoming Chimamanda’s Boy
by Oris Aigbokhaevbolo. I was part of the 2014 Farafina Creative Writing Workshop […]
Creative Industries as Underdevelopment
By Chronic on 19 March 2015 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Cash & Commerce, Faith & Ideology
Are the creative industries turning the tide against urban development in the […]
All That is Solid Melts into PR
By Chronic on 19 March 2015 in Books & Oration, Chronic, Faith & Ideology, Media & Propaganda, Systems of Governance
Mark Fisher speaks to Bongani Kona about the social, economic and cultural totality of late capitalism, the pervasive cynicism in which we seem to be mired, the omnipresence of PR and the possibility of countering it all by re-igniting a belief in the public good.
Reviews in Brief
by Stacy Hardy. Our Lady of the Nile Scholastique Mukasonga (transl. […]
Operation Protective Edge
By Chronic on 19 March 2015 in Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Media & Propaganda, Systems of Governance
by Paul Wessels. The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of […]
Portrait of the Artist as a Daughter
by Ed Pavlić. “Where material is absent, dialectics is groundless.” – James Snead, […]
Licking Dirty Hands
by David Shook. In the tradition of German poet Heimrad Bäcker, who turned […]
Undoing the Spell
By Chronic on 19 March 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies, Systems of Governance
by Ben Verghese. Many of the dominant narratives of the partition focus on […]
The Undeveloped Intellectual in Zombie-land
By Chronic on 19 March 2015 in Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies, Media & Propaganda
by Ibrahim Farghali. This is Rakha’s second novel after his début, The Book […]
Breaking the Rules Beautifully
by Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire. “Breaking the rules attracts implications, Jennifer.” I overhear British […]
Men and their Dogs
by Gwen Ansell. Leonardo Padura is perhaps best known outside his native Cuba […]
Miniature Metamorphoses
by André Naffis-Sahely. In his dotage, Henry Kissinger has come to resemble Emperor […]
The Other Brother
by Bongani Kona. At the centre of Masande Ntshanga’s debut novel, The Reactive, […]
A Geography of Times and Affects
by Marissa Moorman. An Angolan friend of mine refuses to read Ondjaki. […]
And the Books Lived Happily Ever After
by Harry Garuba. If Amos Tutuola had not lived, and written stories in […]
Which Africa Are We Talking About?
By Chronic on 19 March 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Media & Propaganda
In the era of rapid globalisation the exemplary novelists seem to be […]
Shooting From Point Blank Range
By Chronic on 19 March 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Media & Propaganda, Systems of Governance
Moses Serubiri turns on the television and watches the news unfold, in […]
Beneath the Underdog
Fighter, soldier, poet, arguably the PR-unit and embodiment of the Economic Freedom […]
Shifting Gulfward
By Chronic on 19 March 2015 in Books & Oration, Cash & Commerce, Faith & Ideology, Media & Propaganda
The apparent demise of the millennia-old Arab cultural centres and the rapid […]
Life After Oil
Jeremy Weate explores the cultural politics of the petro-based economy in Nigeria, […]
We almost died thrice…
A letter from Lagos by Wanlov the Kubolor. I dey lie for […]
The Bite and the Embrace
A Letter from Malabo by Recaredo Silebo Boturu. I’m writing from here in […]
The Face: Cartography of the Void
Chris Abani has lived in several places and been assumed to be […]
A Brief History of Mapping
by Stacy Hardy. In 1921, the independent Polish scholar Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski […]
How Close Are You To This Place?
by Karen Press. Where is the heart of darkness? We think we know. It’s […]
Situation is Critical
Jeremy Weate moves from text to context in search of the current […]
How to write about Africa
by Boniface Mongo-Mboussa Serpent à Plumes’ republication of Yambo Ouologuem’s Le Devoir de violence […]
In Suburbia
Suburban South Africa is glowing. The sun is up, the trees are […]
The Chronic – mapping the new – soon come
“In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the […]
What Follows? The State of Black Collectivity in the Year of the Sheep
By Chronic on 20 January 2015 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Media & Propaganda, Systems of Governance
Continuing to sing a vital and urgent message of black collectivity, Harmony Holiday writes from […]
Between Worldliness and Exile Homelessness and Cosmopolitanism
With essays by Akin Adesokan, Imraan Coovadia and Ngugi wa Thiong’o bound together, Sean O’Toole examines idiosyncratic writing […]
Dispatches from Beirut
Comic artist and musician Mazen Kerbaj keeps a visual diary of a week […]
In the Listening Room with Neo Muyanga
This Thursday (January 15), Pan African Space Station present “Revolting Songs”, a concert-lecture […]
The African Renaissance Hoer-o-scope for Politicians
By Chronic on 8 January 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Systems of Governance
by Zebulon Dread ARIES Your best bet at survival is not a […]
Kangsen Feka Wakai Can’t Breathe
Transition are calling for responses to the latest sweep of murders by police of unarmed black […]
Beyond Oppression-Liberation-Maendeleo
by Parselelo Kantai It may have been the economist David Ndii who coined […]
Ankara Press, new romance imprint from Cassava Republic Press
A new romance imprint from Cassava Republic Press is now public: Ankara Press. Press […]
Propaganda and Politics tunnel vision history of art activism in South Africa
By Chronic on 9 December 2014 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Media & Propaganda, Systems of Governance
The important contribution of the Black Consciousness Movement to art activism in […]
The New Thing
Out of the silence, the crevices, cracks and forgotten places of Cape […]
Exitour as Rhizome
“Why did we embark on this insane trip?” Having journeyed together from Douala to […]
Une Hommage à Goddy Leye
By Chronic on 21 November 2014 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies, Media & Propaganda, News
With his imagination, sharp wit and all-round uncontournable wholesome beautyness, Goddy Leye has […]
The G.Spot Protagonists
By Chronic on 19 November 2014 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Healing & bodies, Systems of Governance
by Goddy Leye I am sitting in front of the Cologne cathedral, amazed by […]
Honouring Somaliness
Binyavanga Wainaina and Diriye Osman sit down in south London to speak of honouring Somaliness, navigating the globe as a homeless writer, freedom and love.
Poets Pressing Record(s)
by Harmony Holiday Privacy is dead and the word itself sounds a […]
Mythscience Records
Mythscience Records, a label arkiving necessary voices for us all to learn from. Poet Harmony […]
This is a pigment of my imagination
Looking like a ‘Negro’ in India and searching for a connection has […]
How Kenya Exploded In My Heart
A letter from Harare by Petina Gappah I once lived in a […]
XXYX Africa
By Chimurenga on 1 October 2014 in Books & Oration, Chronic, Healing & bodies, Systems of Governance
LGBT Africa held two truths: you fuck, you die.
Buru Buru
Billy Kahora reflects on the state of the ‘estate’ of his Nairobi […]
The Case of Sipho Mchunu
by Bongani Kona In her brilliant review of Didier Fassin’s book, When Bodies Remember: […]
Poets Are Hurting: Lesego Rampolokeng in Conversation with Mafika Gwala
Mafika Gwala emerged as a significant writer in the 1970s during his […]
Accordion Cowboys
Tseliso Monaheng explores famo, a popular form of accordion music that blends […]
AF 888
AF 888 – a letter from above the Mediterranean Sea by Christian Botale […]
Palestine Journey
By Chronic on 22 August 2014 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Systems of Governance
In February 2005, Ishtiyaq Shukri’s novel The Silent Minaret, won the first European […]
L’impossible n’est pas Camerounais!
Kangsen Feka Wakai traces personal lineage, and the often blurred and disputed […]
Visioncarnation
by Orijit Sen Orijit Sen is […]
The Black Guru
Gael Reagon meets the spirit formerly known as Zebulon Dread. On Friday […]
The cosmic lives and afterlives of Zebulon Dread
By Chimurenga on 13 July 2014 in Archive, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Media & Propaganda, Systems of Governance
byAchal Prabhala Part 1: Elliot Josephs Elliot Josephs was born in 1958 […]
11 YRS OF DEMONCRAZY!!!
By Chronic on 2 July 2014 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Cash & Commerce, Faith & Ideology, Media & Propaganda
11 YRS OF DEMONCRAZY!!! O nee Got.!! Got!!! Got!! ! I can’t […]
Historieda
In his letter from Agolam, Yvan Alagbé riffs off a recent visit […]
Motshumi’s Country
For more than three decades, Mogorosi Motshumi has drawn comics, cartoons and […]
It’s only a matter of acceleration now
By Chronic on 1 July 2014 in Books & Oration, Chronic, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies, Systems of Governance
This is how the earth is arranged, or this is how the kora arranged and made the universe, and songs of numbers and words made souls…. Are you ready to interview Youssou N’Dour?
New Bush, Old Ghosts
Cyber crime is a burgeoning business in West Africa, despite often primitive […]
When You Kill Us, We Rule
By Chronic on 18 June 2014 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies
Audre Lorde‘s poem, “The Black Unicorn”, is woven into rhetorical charcoal drawings by […]
Sketches of ‘Trane
Atang Tshikare is a artist and illustrator based in Cape […]
The End of Elections
by Paula Akugizibwe Jose Saramago’s Seeing is no Arab spring. Revolutionary […]
On Mermaids and Microwaves
Diriye Osman is a storyteller – on page, stage and canvas. His […]
A Brief History of Presidential Libraries
by Stacy Hardy Léopold Sédar Senghor, Aimé Césaire and George Pompidou were friends […]
In Praise of Complexity
by Martin Kimani Adéwálé Àjàdí is a contrary brother striving to live based […]
Translations – A Call For Proposals
This call is published in the December 2013 edition […]
The skin I’m in: Afro-Bengali solidarity and possible futures
Naeem Mohaiemen reviews Vivek Bald’s Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of […]
Paris-Algiers, Underground Class
by Mustapha Benfodil It’s romance landed me this job. I am a mailman […]
“I’m Not An African Writer, Damn You!”
by Akin Adesokan One is an African writer, or rather one becomes […]
Number 11
Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño muses on writing, borders, Latin American literature and the […]
From the earnest hustle of our elders in writing during the 1960s […]
Calabar Winch
By Akin Adesokan I When the goddess of happy accidents stumbles on […]
African Cookbooks and Excess Luggage
By Yemisi Aribisala There is a sense of justice and spirit of resignation […]
The Complete Gentleman
In London Kamwendo’s interpretation of Amos Tutuola’s sly satire of spectral global capitalism […]
The Art of Suspense
Lidudumalingani Mqombothi revisits the football matches of his childhood, when radio, not […]
Writing Football
By Juan Villoro It’s unlikely you’ll be a fan of any sport […]
The Invention of African Football
Moses März documents his fleeting orbit of the “African” football scene, from […]
A Fine Madness
By Masande Ntshanga Here’s how this starts: halfway through Mishka Hoosen’s debut […]
Politics of Betrayal
Using historian and author Jacob Dlamini’s latest work as a backdrop, Bongani […]
Dear Dr. Schwab, Queen of Jordan
Binyavanga Wainaina responds to an invitation to participate in Young Global Leaders 2007
Dansons Donc le Zouglou
By Henri-Michel Yere Déscolarisé In 1980s Côte d’Ivoire, exclusion from the schooling […]
Creating Theatre: A George Hallett Photo Essay
“Exile demands contemplation because it is unavoidably real for those who experience […]
CAMFRANGLAIS – a lexicon
By Stephane Akoa (translated by Karen Press) Avoir la godasse: avoir le […]
Love and Learning Under the World Bank
Stacy Hardy recounts seventeen stories of the hierarchies, the anti-heroes, the hard […]
Land Homeland
Q&A with Mahmood Mamdani Chronic: Your book Define and Rule: Native as […]
The Sahara is not a Boundary
Ziad Bentahar is an assistant professor of French and Arabic at Towson […]
Jeune Afrique
By Moses Marz In 1968, Béchir Ben Yahmed launched his first attempt […]
Souffles
By Toni Maraini The first issue was thin, but it responded “to […]
Trajectories of the Sudanese Gulf
By Michael Vasquez Hiwar The journal that the Congress for Cultural Freedom […]
Hiwar
By Michael Vasquez The journal that the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) published […]
Qibla
Qibla leader Imam Achmad Cassiem in conversation with Khalid Shamis. “When the […]
Writing the City in a Different Script
The Arabic-Afrikaans Tradition of the Cape By Saarah Jappie A hundred years […]
CHIMURENGA@20: SECULAR STORIES
Authenticity counts for something; the confidence that authenticity bestows counts for even more.
The New Reading
Some argue that the new media has forever altered our attention span, that the experience of being completely lost and absorbed, an experience they say you only got from a printed book, has disappeared.
CHIMURENGA@20: WAITING FOR WAME
I am hungry. Tempted. In pain. I reach for the pack. Pop out another capsule. One minute. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. The pain has reduced to a dull throbbing. I am floating.
Authority Stealing in Kenya
In pursuit of some scriptwriter talent, Billy Kahora discovers that academic mantras, […]
Both Sides Then and Now
By Rustum Kozain Perhaps too short for the reading pleasure it provides, […]
Authority Stealing in Nigeria
Akin Adesokan confronts the ‘real world of Nigerian politics’ and comes to […]
Authority Stealing in India
Rakesh Khanna explores the web of Indian-language crime fiction publishing, in which […]
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.
I Think I’ll Call it Morning
by Bongani Kona Penumbra Songeziwe Mahlangu Kwela Books, 2013 Sometime in […]
The Shifting Fortunes of a Performing Poet
Post-apartheid poetry and its makers have witnessed the commodification of the art […]
Black Man in the White Suit
A Letter from Cape Town by Kiluanji Kia Henda. In 2008, the […]
Pan Africanism in Katanga
In the margins of a specific history, in which land and inhabitants […]
Becoming Chimamanda’s Boy
by Oris Aigbokhaevbolo. I was part of the 2014 Farafina Creative Writing Workshop […]
Creative Industries as Underdevelopment
Are the creative industries turning the tide against urban development in the […]
All That is Solid Melts into PR
Mark Fisher speaks to Bongani Kona about the social, economic and cultural totality of late capitalism, the pervasive cynicism in which we seem to be mired, the omnipresence of PR and the possibility of countering it all by re-igniting a belief in the public good.
Reviews in Brief
by Stacy Hardy. Our Lady of the Nile Scholastique Mukasonga (transl. […]
Operation Protective Edge
by Paul Wessels. The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of […]
Portrait of the Artist as a Daughter
by Ed Pavlić. “Where material is absent, dialectics is groundless.” – James Snead, […]
Licking Dirty Hands
by David Shook. In the tradition of German poet Heimrad Bäcker, who turned […]
Undoing the Spell
by Ben Verghese. Many of the dominant narratives of the partition focus on […]
The Undeveloped Intellectual in Zombie-land
by Ibrahim Farghali. This is Rakha’s second novel after his début, The Book […]
Breaking the Rules Beautifully
by Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire. “Breaking the rules attracts implications, Jennifer.” I overhear British […]
Men and their Dogs
by Gwen Ansell. Leonardo Padura is perhaps best known outside his native Cuba […]
Miniature Metamorphoses
by André Naffis-Sahely. In his dotage, Henry Kissinger has come to resemble Emperor […]
The Other Brother
by Bongani Kona. At the centre of Masande Ntshanga’s debut novel, The Reactive, […]
A Geography of Times and Affects
by Marissa Moorman. An Angolan friend of mine refuses to read Ondjaki. […]
And the Books Lived Happily Ever After
by Harry Garuba. If Amos Tutuola had not lived, and written stories in […]
Which Africa Are We Talking About?
In the era of rapid globalisation the exemplary novelists seem to be […]
Shooting From Point Blank Range
Moses Serubiri turns on the television and watches the news unfold, in […]
Beneath the Underdog
Fighter, soldier, poet, arguably the PR-unit and embodiment of the Economic Freedom […]
Shifting Gulfward
The apparent demise of the millennia-old Arab cultural centres and the rapid […]
Life After Oil
Jeremy Weate explores the cultural politics of the petro-based economy in Nigeria, […]
We almost died thrice…
A letter from Lagos by Wanlov the Kubolor. I dey lie for […]
The Bite and the Embrace
A Letter from Malabo by Recaredo Silebo Boturu. I’m writing from here in […]
The Face: Cartography of the Void
Chris Abani has lived in several places and been assumed to be […]
A Brief History of Mapping
by Stacy Hardy. In 1921, the independent Polish scholar Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski […]
How Close Are You To This Place?
by Karen Press. Where is the heart of darkness? We think we know. It’s […]
Situation is Critical
Jeremy Weate moves from text to context in search of the current […]
How to write about Africa
by Boniface Mongo-Mboussa Serpent à Plumes’ republication of Yambo Ouologuem’s Le Devoir de violence […]
In Suburbia
Suburban South Africa is glowing. The sun is up, the trees are […]
The Chronic – mapping the new – soon come
“In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the […]
What Follows? The State of Black Collectivity in the Year of the Sheep
Continuing to sing a vital and urgent message of black collectivity, Harmony Holiday writes from […]
Between Worldliness and Exile Homelessness and Cosmopolitanism
With essays by Akin Adesokan, Imraan Coovadia and Ngugi wa Thiong’o bound together, Sean O’Toole examines idiosyncratic writing […]
Dispatches from Beirut
Comic artist and musician Mazen Kerbaj keeps a visual diary of a week […]
In the Listening Room with Neo Muyanga
This Thursday (January 15), Pan African Space Station present “Revolting Songs”, a concert-lecture […]
The African Renaissance Hoer-o-scope for Politicians
by Zebulon Dread ARIES Your best bet at survival is not a […]
Kangsen Feka Wakai Can’t Breathe
Transition are calling for responses to the latest sweep of murders by police of unarmed black […]
Beyond Oppression-Liberation-Maendeleo
by Parselelo Kantai It may have been the economist David Ndii who coined […]
Ankara Press, new romance imprint from Cassava Republic Press
A new romance imprint from Cassava Republic Press is now public: Ankara Press. Press […]
Propaganda and Politics tunnel vision history of art activism in South Africa
The important contribution of the Black Consciousness Movement to art activism in […]
The New Thing
Out of the silence, the crevices, cracks and forgotten places of Cape […]
Exitour as Rhizome
“Why did we embark on this insane trip?” Having journeyed together from Douala to […]
Une Hommage à Goddy Leye
With his imagination, sharp wit and all-round uncontournable wholesome beautyness, Goddy Leye has […]
The G.Spot Protagonists
by Goddy Leye I am sitting in front of the Cologne cathedral, amazed by […]
Honouring Somaliness
Binyavanga Wainaina and Diriye Osman sit down in south London to speak of honouring Somaliness, navigating the globe as a homeless writer, freedom and love.
Poets Pressing Record(s)
by Harmony Holiday Privacy is dead and the word itself sounds a […]
Mythscience Records
Mythscience Records, a label arkiving necessary voices for us all to learn from. Poet Harmony […]
This is a pigment of my imagination
Looking like a ‘Negro’ in India and searching for a connection has […]
How Kenya Exploded In My Heart
A letter from Harare by Petina Gappah I once lived in a […]
XXYX Africa
LGBT Africa held two truths: you fuck, you die.
Buru Buru
Billy Kahora reflects on the state of the ‘estate’ of his Nairobi […]
The Case of Sipho Mchunu
by Bongani Kona In her brilliant review of Didier Fassin’s book, When Bodies Remember: […]
Poets Are Hurting: Lesego Rampolokeng in Conversation with Mafika Gwala
Mafika Gwala emerged as a significant writer in the 1970s during his […]
Accordion Cowboys
Tseliso Monaheng explores famo, a popular form of accordion music that blends […]
AF 888
AF 888 – a letter from above the Mediterranean Sea by Christian Botale […]
Palestine Journey
In February 2005, Ishtiyaq Shukri’s novel The Silent Minaret, won the first European […]
L’impossible n’est pas Camerounais!
Kangsen Feka Wakai traces personal lineage, and the often blurred and disputed […]
Visioncarnation
by Orijit Sen Orijit Sen is […]
The Black Guru
Gael Reagon meets the spirit formerly known as Zebulon Dread. On Friday […]
The cosmic lives and afterlives of Zebulon Dread
byAchal Prabhala Part 1: Elliot Josephs Elliot Josephs was born in 1958 […]
11 YRS OF DEMONCRAZY!!!
11 YRS OF DEMONCRAZY!!! O nee Got.!! Got!!! Got!! ! I can’t […]
Historieda
In his letter from Agolam, Yvan Alagbé riffs off a recent visit […]
Motshumi’s Country
For more than three decades, Mogorosi Motshumi has drawn comics, cartoons and […]
It’s only a matter of acceleration now
This is how the earth is arranged, or this is how the kora arranged and made the universe, and songs of numbers and words made souls…. Are you ready to interview Youssou N’Dour?
New Bush, Old Ghosts
Cyber crime is a burgeoning business in West Africa, despite often primitive […]
When You Kill Us, We Rule
Audre Lorde‘s poem, “The Black Unicorn”, is woven into rhetorical charcoal drawings by […]
Sketches of ‘Trane
Atang Tshikare is a artist and illustrator based in Cape […]
The End of Elections
by Paula Akugizibwe Jose Saramago’s Seeing is no Arab spring. Revolutionary […]
On Mermaids and Microwaves
Diriye Osman is a storyteller – on page, stage and canvas. His […]
A Brief History of Presidential Libraries
by Stacy Hardy Léopold Sédar Senghor, Aimé Césaire and George Pompidou were friends […]
In Praise of Complexity
by Martin Kimani Adéwálé Àjàdí is a contrary brother striving to live based […]
Translations – A Call For Proposals
This call is published in the December 2013 edition […]
The skin I’m in: Afro-Bengali solidarity and possible futures
Naeem Mohaiemen reviews Vivek Bald’s Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of […]
Paris-Algiers, Underground Class
by Mustapha Benfodil It’s romance landed me this job. I am a mailman […]
“I’m Not An African Writer, Damn You!”
by Akin Adesokan One is an African writer, or rather one becomes […]
Number 11
Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño muses on writing, borders, Latin American literature and the […]
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