“Mandela was not the only head of state taken in by Koagne. Le king kept snapshots of himself with many a man of power, among them Mobutu Sese Seko and Denis Sassou Nguesso […] He took Mobutu for 15 million dollars. Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso lost 40 million to him. Sassou, Etienne Eyadéma of Togo, several high officials of Gabon, Tanzania and Kenya, a member of the Spanish government and an ex-operative of the Israeli Mossad were bamboozled as well.” – Dominique Malaquais (Blood Money: A Douala Chronicle).
Bantu Serenade by Ntone Edjabe (featuring Nah-ee-lah) (read excerpt)
Santu Mofokeng: Trajectory of a street photographer (part1) (read excerpt)
Binyavanga Wainaina: Hell In Bed With Mrs Peprah (read excerpt)
Dominique Malaquais: Lindela (the winnie suite) (read excerpt)
Boubacar Boris Diop: Myriem (read excerpt)
Cover:
Neo Muyanga
Building African Futures presents ten essays by young architects, urban planners and activists that offer innovative solutions to big challenges, including housing shortages, informality, legal roadblocks and misunderstandings between architects, policy-makers and local people. Their ideas are grounded yet transformative. They reflect the authors’ direct experiences across a range of African cities, but the issues they speak to resonate across the continent. This collection is a rich resource for urban activists, built environment professionals, local governments and a general audience with an interest in African urbanism.
The manifestoes were presented in September 2022 during a symposium in Accra titled “Reimagining African Futures through Transformative Urbanism and Architecture”, organised by the African State Architecture (ASA) project, SOAS, University of London; the African Futures Institute (AFI) and the Institute for African Studies (IAS), University of Ghana.