Emmanuel Iduma • Lidudumalingani • Zoë Wicomb • Chigozie Obioma • Mbali Sikakana • Amatesiro Dore • Chike Frankie Edozien • Efemia Chela • Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu • Jennifer Malec • PR Anderson • Rustum Kozain • George Monbiot • Ben Williams • Keletso Mopai • Victor Dlamini • TL Huchu
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Welcome to the first issue of Volume 3 of The Johannesburg Review of Books.
Here to help you start 2019 with a cogitative bang, we’re proud to present our second annual January Conversation Issue.
It’s the beginning of a new year, after all: we’re still breathing from our diaphragms, the rat race has not yet become all-consuming. It’s an opportune time to feel out the shape of 2019’s burgeoning zeitgeist. To that end, we’ve gathered together a series of galvanising interviews and essays by a literary think-tank’s-worth of writers, to help you flesh out your to-read list, inspire you to open that blank document and start typing, and give you a feel for whether it is yet necessary to stock up on tinned food and begin work on that underground bunker (breathe in, breathe out).
End-times jokes aside …
Here’s the complete breakdown of Vol. 3, Issue 1, the Conversation Issue, which you will also find on our issue archive page:
The Conversation Issue
Interviews
- ‘There is nothing I loathe more than the idea that a piece of writing is “experimental”’—Emmanuel Iduma in conversation with Lidudumalingani
- To save the Earth, ‘we need to think beyond national democracy’—George Monbiot discusses his book Out of the Wreckage
- ‘Africa exists in the world, and the world has always been in Africa’—Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu chats to Jennifer Malec about her debut novel, The Theory of Flight
- A brief history of the Igbo civilisation, and a love story—Chigozie Obioma chats to Jennifer Malec about his new novel, An Orchestra of Minorities
- ‘Every small victory chips away at the fallacy that gay people are some sort of un-African species’—Chike Frankie Edozien chats to Efemia Chela
- ‘Poetry is music, nothing more’—PR Anderson talks to Rustum Kozain about his new collection, In a Free State: A Music
- ‘Intersectionality seems so blindingly obvious a notion’—Zoë Wicomb in conversation with Andrew van der Vlies, from their new book Race, Nation, Translation
Essays
- How to protect Africa—Mbali Sikakana decodes Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s visit to the Abantu Book Festival
- Letter to a Young Queer Intellectual by Amatesiro Dore
Poetry
Short fiction
- New short fiction: ‘Monkeys’ by Keletso Mopai
- New short fiction: ‘Njuzu’ by TL Huchu, excerpted from the Pan-African science fiction anthology AfroSFv3
Photo Editor
The JRB Daily
- Top 10 of 2018—A look back at our most popular articles of the year
- Justin Cartwright, 1945–2018, RIP
Header image: Jennifer Malec
