“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
On Labour eds. by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and Ibrahim Cissé with Antonia Alampi, Amal Alhaag, Zippora Elders, Krista Jantowski, Aude Christel Mgba (Archive Books, 2021)
This reader is a culmination of direct and tangential deliberations on labour. Notions of labour appreciated across geographies and mediums. Newly commissioned textual manifestations in a multilogue with historical positions. The reader could be perceived as a negotiation of positions, as the strive towards utterances, towards becoming. Each text could be imagined as a stanza in a song. This is also a strive towards musicality. Or at least a wish for this reader to be a choir, in which we collectively sing, in which we all listen to each other to be able to sing, but most importantly, in which we afford ourselves the privilege of ‘hearing the eloquence of silence’, ‘seeing the inner vision beneath the closed eyes’ and ‘listening to the chastity of inner music that defies betrayal by the wayward wind.’
With contributions of Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Panashe Chigumadzi, Maurizio Lazzarato, Danielle Child, Anne Moraa, Philomena Essed, Djuwa Mroivili, Anivia Beylard, Jana Keijdener, Iheb Guermazi, Alia Mossallam, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Chenjerai Kumanyika, Simone Atangana Bekono, Lionel Manga, Kodwo Eshun, Amal Alhaag, Precious Colette Kemigisha, Guy Ossito Midiohouan, Akila Richards, Mwazulu Diyabanza, Ibrahim Cissé, Léon-Gontran Damas.