Makhosazana Xaba • Busisiwe Mahlangu • Shayera Dark • Percy Zvomuya • Wamuwi Mbao • Jennifer Malec • Niq Mhlongo • Lebohang Mojapelo • Pontsho Pilane • Sreddy Yen • Kweku Abimbola • Daniel Moss • Masande Ntshanga • CJ Driver • Uhuru Portia Phalafala • Achille Mbembe • Louis Timagène Houat • Barbara Boswell • Nthikeng Mohlele • Tlotlo Tsamaase • Victor Dlamini
Welcome to the second issue of Volume 8 of The Johannesburg Review of Books!
In this issue, Shayera Dark reviews Musih Tedji Xaviere’s debut novel These Letters End in Tears, ‘a welcome addition to the growing list of literature centring queer lives in Africa’, while Wamuwi Mbao engages with Hedley Twidle’s new collection of essays, Show Me the Place, and Percy Zvomuya appraises Mary E Ndlovu’s memoir, An Outsider Within: A Memoir of Love, of Loss, of Perseverance.
In the fifth in our series of long-form interviews focusing on contemporary poetry collections by Black women and non-binary poets, The JRB Patron Makhosazana Xaba chats to Busisiwe Mahlangu about creativity, structure, and owning and embracing power. Elsewhere in the issue, Niq Mhlongo chats to JRB Editor Jennifer Malec about his new novel, The City is Mine, and the changes he’s seen in the publishing industry since his first novel was published twenty years ago; Gambia-born poet Kweku Abimbola is in conversation with Sreddy Yen about identity, poetry, diaspora and Afropessimism; and finally, Lebohang Mojapelo talks to Pontsho Pilane about her book Power and Faith: How Evangelical Churches are Quietly Shaping Our Democracy.
In our survey of new and forthcoming fiction, we present for your enjoyment an excerpt from the rediscovered classic The Maroons, the only known novel by Black abolitionist and political exile Louis Timagène Houat. You can also dip into Barbara Boswell’s new novel, The Comrade’s Wife; Nthikeng Mohlele’s Revolutionaries’ House; as well as Tlotlo Tsamaase’s debut Womb City, a cyberpunk horror set in a future Botswana.
In non-fiction, we present extracts from Masande Ntshanga’s new essay ‘Technologies of Conquest’, newly published in The Creative Arts: On Practice, Making and Meaning, edited by Sally Ann Murray and Michèle Betty; Dayspring, the memoir of the late CJ Driver, major South African poet and exiled student politician; Keorapetse Kgositsile and the Black Arts Movement by Uhuru Portia Phalafala; Achille Mbembe’s award-winning new book Brutalism; and Izimpabanga Zomhlaba, Makhosazana Xaba’s new isiZulu translation of The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon.
In our poetry section, we’re delighted to present five poems by Daniel Moss.
From our Photo Editor Victor Dlamini this month, a literary portrait of Shubnum Khan.
Here’s the complete breakdown of Vol. 8, Issue 2, which you will also find on our issue archive page:
Reviews
- ‘A welcome addition to the growing list of literature centring queer lives in Africa’—Shayera Dark reviews Musih Tedji Xaviere’s debut novel These Letters End in Tears
- ‘A worthy addition to the Zimbabwean library of the struggle-engaged’—Percy Zvomuya reviews An Outsider Within by Mary E Ndlovu
- ‘An open-hearted refusal of the atomised world’—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Hedley Twidle’s new collection of essays, Show Me the Place
Interviews
- ‘Before I even believed in myself, women writers older than me held my hand’—Busisiwe Mahlangu in conversation with Makhosazana Xaba
- ‘Joburg is like a jilted lover’—Niq Mhlongo talks to Jennifer Malec about his latest novel, The City is Mine
- On identity, poetry, diaspora and Afropessimism—Kweku Abimbola in conversation with Sreddy Yen
- ‘A family can be a very stifling environment’—Lebohang Mojapelo interviews Pontsho Pilane on her book Power and Faith: How Evangelical Churches are Quietly Shaping Our Democracy
Poetry
Fiction excerpts
- ‘Listen, when the ancestors bite your ears’—Read an excerpt from Avenues by Train, the debut novel by Farai Mudzingwa
- ‘The dread of Whites and of ghosts loomed in his mind’—Read an excerpt from the new English translation of Louis Timagène Houat’s rediscovered classic The Maroons
- ‘Does being a politician have to be a dealbreaker?’—Read an excerpt from Barbara Boswell’s new novel, The Comrade’s Wife
- ‘Johannesburg winters are brutal; you freeze to the bone marrow here’—Read an excerpt from Nthikeng Mohlele’s new novel Revolutionaries’ House
- ‘This is my third lifespan.’—Read an excerpt from Tlotlo Tsamaase’s debut novel Womb City, a cyberpunk horror set in a future Botswana
Non-fiction
- ‘I lose myself for hours inside its green and blue pixels’—Read Masande Ntshanga’s new essay Technologies of Conquest, from The Creative Arts: On Practice, Making and Meaning
- ‘Because of informers, meetings were never announced beforehand’—Read an excerpt from Dayspring, the memoir of the late CJ Driver, major South African poet and exiled student politician
- Continuities between Tswana worlds and Black world politics—Read an excerpt from Keorapetse Kgositsile and the Black Arts Movement by Uhuru Portia Phalafala
- ‘Like knowledge, ignorance is a form of power’—Read an excerpt from Achille Mbembe’s award-winning book Brutalism
- Read an excerpt from Izimpabanga Zomhlaba, Makhosazana Xaba’s new isiZulu translation of The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
Photography
Music
The JRB Daily
- ‘Both beautiful and uncomfortable, personal and political’—Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Michael Hofmann, wins 2024 International Booker Prize
- 2024 HSS Awards winners announced—honouring ‘outstanding works of literature and the arts’
