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[The JRB Daily] 2018 South African Literary Awards winners announced—Mongane Wally Serote is South Africa’s new Poet Laureate
Header image taken by Victor Dlamini Mongane Wally Serote has been announced as South Africa’s new Poet Laureate at the…
The Johannesburg Review of Books Vol. 2, Issue 11 (November 2018)
Efemia Chela • Maryse Condé • Tsitsi Dangarembga • Shayera Dark • Victor Dlamini • Rebecca Duncan • Terry Kurgan…
We told her she was Nina Simone—Bongani Madondo reviews She Begat This: 20 Years of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by Joan Morgan
As Bongani Madondo experienced tinges of nostalgia occasioned by the twentieth anniversary of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, HipHop Feminist…
[Sponsored] Are we reaching a new level of mental fragility? Rebecca Davis chats about her new book Self-Helpless: A Cynic’s Search for Sanity
Rebecca Davis chatted to The Reading List about her new book Self-Helpless: A Cynic’s Search for Sanity, a humorous take on…
[The JRB Exclusive] An excerpt from Tsitsi Dangarembga’s This Mournable Body, the third in the Tambudzai Trilogy that began with Nervous Conditions
The JRB presents an exclusive excerpt from This Mournable Body, the highly anticipated new novel from Tsitsi Dangarembga. Scroll to…
[Temporary Sojourner] Efemia Chela reads Trifonia Melibea Obono’s La Bastarda, the first novel by an Equatoguinean woman to be translated into English
In La Bastarda we find a revolutionary piece of literature, where a young girl isn’t saved by her long-lost father,…
[Sponsored] The Man Who Killed Apartheid: The Life of Dimitri Tsafendas – a complete about turn on one of the apartheid government’s greatest cover-ups
The Man Who Killed Apartheid: The Life of Dimitri Tsafendas by Harris Dousemetzis is out now from Jacana Media. In…
‘Even death dey fear me.’—Read an excerpt from Nnedi Okorafor’s short story ‘Showlogo’, from the new anthology Lagos Noir
The JRB presents an excerpt from a short story by Nnedi Okorafor, taken from the new anthology Lagos Noir. Lagos…
Transforming the real world into something strange—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Sally Rooney’s unusual and evanescent novel Normal People
Sally Rooney reshapes our understanding of the ordinary in a manner that invites us to imagine better ways of being,…
[Sponsored] ‘To be interesting is to be noticed and to be noticed is dangerous’ – Read an extract from Anna Burns’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel Milkman
Jonathan Ball Publishers has shared an extract from Anna Burns’s novel Milkman, which was recently awarded the 2018 Man Booker Prize. Milkman is…
‘We need to have lots of conversations about the Africa we want’—An interview with Lola Shoneyin, founder of the Aké Festival
Lola Shoneyin spoke to Shayera Dark about the fifth edition of the Aké Arts and Book Festival, which took place…
[City Editor] Visa hassles and visa hustles—Niq Mhlongo compares travelling to Nigeria in 2008 and 2018
Header image (left to right): Nozizwe Cynthia Jele, Niq Mhlongo, Siyamthanda Skota, Yanele Nyamela, Phindile Mokoena, Outlwile Tsipane and Mũkoma…
[Sponsored] ‘Writing is like removing your own appendix with a pair of rusty scissors’—Mark Winkler chats about his new book Theo and Flora
Mark Winkler discusses his new novel, Theo & Flora, and why writing is like performing surgery on yourself. Winkler sat down…
Read an excerpt from What Is Africa to Me? by Guadeloupean author Maryse Condé, winner of the ‘alternative Nobel’ literature prize
A giant of black feminist writing and thought, Maryse Condé was recently awarded the New Academy Prize in Literature, a…
A seminal catalyst of African speculative fiction—Thando Njovane shares three thoughts on Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death
Constructed around a feminist, though dystopian, future, Nnedi Okorafor’s novel Who Fears Death—now reissued some eight years after its first…
[Photo Editor] Original portraits of Sue Nyathi and Athol Fugard by Victor Dlamini
Victor Dlamini is The JRB’s Photo Editor. We feature his work on our Instagram channel. Don’t miss the ten-year retrospective…
What would happen if the super-rich spent all their money? Jennifer Malec reviews Patrick deWitt’s new novel, French Exit
It’s a strange time to be writing a comedy of manners about moneyed New Yorkers, but Patrick deWitt’s French Exit…
New poetry: ‘Shlomo’s Return’ by Geoffrey Philp
The Johannesburg Review of Books presents a previously unpublished poem by Geoffrey Philp. ~~~ Shlomo’s Return (For Jeffrey and Dina…
‘He took us only as far as Auschwitz’—Read an excerpt from Everyone is Present: Essays on Photography, Memory and Family by Terry Kurgan
After a pleasant day that perhaps included a light lunch in Hotel Zator, they would write postcards to family or…
A chronicle of the city’s expansion—photographs from the new book Johannesburg Then and Now
The cover image for the November 2018 issue of The JRB is excerpted from the new book Johannesburg Then and…
Johannesburg’s literary subterranean horror—Read an excerpt from South African Gothic by Rebecca Duncan
The JRB presents an excerpt from South African Gothic: Anxiety and Creative Dissent in the Post-apartheid Imagination and Beyond by…
Maryse Condé receives The New Academy Prize in Literature, aka the ‘Alternative Nobel’
On 12 October, Maryse Condé was announced as the winner of the New Academy Prize in Literature, an award created…
The 2018 Sol Plaatje Lecture: Kole Omotoso on The Power of Politics, the Power of Literatures—Sol Plaatje and the Madness of Making Humanity Shudder
This year’s Annual Sol Plaatje Lecture was delivered on 17 October at Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley, by Professor Kole Omotoso….
[The JRB Daily] 2018 Brittle Paper Award shortlists announced, recognising the ‘finest original pieces of writing by Africans published online’
The shortlists for the 2018 Brittle Paper Awards have been announced. The awards were established in 2017 to recognise the…
[The JRB Daily] Anna Burns wins 2018 Man Booker Prize for her ‘utterly distinctive’ novel Milkman
Anna Burns has become the first Northern Irish writer to win the Man Booker Prize. The fifty-six-year-old author won the fiftieth…
The Johannesburg Review of Books Vol. 2, Issue 10 (October 2018)
Welcome to the tenth issue of Volume 2 of The Johannesburg Review of Books. In this edition, Azad Essa makes…
Bullets and carnage, infidelity and revenge in occupied Kashmir—Azad Essa reviews Feroz Rather’s The Night of Broken Glass
In his debut work of fiction, The Night of Broken Glass, Feroz Rather masterfully captures the peculiar, punctured lives of…
[Sponsored] Read an excerpt from Transcription, the new novel from bestselling, award-winning author Kate Atkinson
Penguin Random House has shared an extract from Transcription, the magnificent new novel by bestselling, award-winning Kate Atkinson, author of…
‘I like writing male characters—I don’t have to get them home safely at the end of the chapter’—An interview with Aminatta Forna
Aminatta Forna sat down with The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec at the Open Book Festival in Cape Town to talk about her new novel,…
Where’s Mzansi noir?—Wamuwi Mbao laments the lack of dark and moody South African television adaptations
Wamuwi Mbao imagines a serial adaptation of Angela Makholwa’s Black Widow Society, a sleekly executed interpretation of HJ Golakai’s The Lazarus…
[Sponsored] Cover reveal: The Freedom Artist, the new novel by Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri
Jonathan Ball Publishers has revealed the cover for The Freedom Artist, the new novel by Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri! ‘Okri’s…
‘Afrofuturism is not for Africans living in Africa’—an essay by Mohale Mashigo, excerpted from her new collection of short stories, Intruders
The JRB presents ‘Afrofuturism: Ayashis’ Amateki’, an essay by Mohale Mashigo, which serves as the preface to her new collection…
Books and belonging—Fred Khumalo reflects on how James Hadley Chase and Alan Paton changed his life
Fred Khumalo recalls being swept off his feet by Alan Paton, the African Writers Series and James Hadley Chase. It’s a question…
[Sponsored] Out now from the Picador Africa Heritage Series: Call Me Woman by Ellen Kuzwayo
Picador Africa celebrates five important books in the Heritage Series. 491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69 by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Conversations with…
The rediscovery of the ordinary does not preclude the extraordinary—Jennifer Malec reviews Esi Edugyan’s novel Washington Black
The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec reviews Esi Edugyan’s Man Booker Prize-shortlisted novel, Washington Black. Washington Black Esi Edugyan Serpent’s Tail, 2018 Esi…
Three new poems by Maya Surya Pillay
The Johannesburg Review of Books presents previously unpublished poetry by Maya Surya Pillay. ~~~ mouth Your mother did not abort…
