“Three generations of white South African men were bound together at that table. Vermuelen was the first generation. He defined Africa, made it safe for Basson to defile. I was the last generation, the last to grow up in segregated neighborhoods. Between us was the silent photograph of Wouter Basson. Like a distant father, Basson was absent at the dining table.” – Henk Rossouw (Hole in the White ‘Hood). Also Mahmood Mamdani on Bantu Education at UCT, Gael Reagon on sisterhood, Binyavanga Wainaina on dis-covering Kenya, Gaston Zossou on African intellectuals and more…
Cover:
Strange Fruit by Lewis Allen
Stories from this inaugural issue of the Chronic range from investigations into the business of moving corpses to the rhetoric of land theft and loss; latent tensions between Africa’s most powerful nations to the soft power of the biggest satellite television provider; and the unspoken history of Rushdie’s “word crimes” to the unwritten history of PAGAD.
Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Binyanvanga Wainaina, Dominique Malaquais, Mahmood Mamdani, Andile Mngxitama, Gwen Ansell, Patrice Nganang, Achal Prabhala, Rustum Kostain, Karen Press, Niq Mhlongo, Paula Akugizibwe, Tolu Ogunlesi, Sean Jacobs, Harmony Holiday, Howard French, Billy Kahora are a few of its many contributors from around the world.
