Salimah Valiani chats to Anna Stroud about maps, trees and all the ingredients for love one can find in Johannesburg—and…
The JRB presents an excerpt from Breaking the Bombers: How the Hunt for Pagad Created a Crack Police Unit by…
The JRB presents an excerpt from Reading From the South: African Print Cultures and Oceanic Turns in Isabel Hofmeyr’s Work….
The JRB presents an exclusive excerpt from Glass Tower by Sarah Isaacs, winner of the 2022 Island Prize for a…
Kyle Allan reviews Skin Rafts by Kelwyn Sole, a collection of poems that wrestle with a world that is connected…
Academic Editor Simon van Schalkwyk talks to PR Anderson about travelling to places you’ve never been, the viciousness of history,…
The JRB presents ‘Blue Boy Lagoon’ by Keith Oliver Lewis, the winning short story from this year’s Short.Sharp.Stories Awards. The…
The JRB presents an excerpt from Lost Libraries, Burnt Archives, an edited volume of short stories, artworks, poems and essays…
Carina Venter reviews Paula Fourie’s Mr Entertainment: The Story of Taliep Petersen, finding a life that encompasses a country and…
The R335 curves around the eastern border of Addo Elephant Park and spools north through the cushiony green hills of…
The JRB presents an updated version of an essay first published in Jim Pascual Agustin’s book of poems Bloodred Dragonflies:…
The JRB presents an excerpt from Patric Tariq Mellet’s autobiography Cleaner’s Boy: A Resistance Road to a Liberated Life. Cleaner’s…
The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec sat down with Margie Orford to talk about the challenges of writing about sexual violence, the politics…
Contributing Editor Efemia Chela speaks to CA Davids about her new novel, How to Be a Revolutionary. How to Be a RevolutionaryCA…
In 2020, Caroline Davis, a British scholar, now based at England’s University College London, published the book African Literature and…
Timothy Wright reviews Meg Samuelson’s new book, Claiming the City in South African Literature, which argues that only through writing…
The JRB presents new poetry by Jacques Coetzee. ~~~ Pushing and Pulling Time Dearest, these are the days of maintenance,of keeping strict tempo….
The JRB presents an excerpt from A Conspiracy of Mothers by Colleen van Niekerk. A Conspiracy of MothersColleen van NiekerkLittle…
Cities and mining Underneath Johannesburg, imagine hollow cities, stretching from Soweto all the way to Turffontein, and further. As the…
Karen Jennings was recently longlisted for the Booker Prize, for her novel An Island. Here she chats to The JRB…
On Sundays, in downtown Johannesburg, on the edge of Hillbrow, encroaching into Braamfontein, queues of worshippers fill out the streets,…
The JRB presents an excerpt from By the Fading Light, the new novel from European Union Literary Award-winner Ashraf Kagee….
For reasons technical, historical and—above all—thematic, Dickens is writ large in African literature, writes Adekeye Adebajo. As we approach the…
Guest City Editor Lidudumalingani talks to Academic Editor Simon van Schalkwyk about identity, memory, psychogeography, and his new poetry collection,…
Whether we have learnt from the story of Dr Abdullah Abdurahman remains to be seen, writes Stephen Langtry. Martin Plaut’s…
The JRB presents tunes and accompanying editorial from our EAP member Tymon Smith. The people who know say that life…
Arja Salafranca reviews Mark Gevisser’s new book The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers. The Pink Line: Journeys…
The JRB presents an excerpt from the Author’s Preface of And Wrote My Story Anyway: Black South African Women’s Novels…
Editor’s note: by agreement with the author, this article has been removed from The JRB, ahead of its reappearance in…
Toni Giselle Stuart reviews Gabeba Baderoon’s poetry collection The History of Intimacy, which won the 2019 University of Johannesburg Main…
The following piece was written in 2006, since when it has been languishing on the author’s blog. It was revived…
The Johannesburg Review of Books presents a new poem by Khadija Tracey Heeger. ~~~ I come from I come from…
As part of our January Conversation Issue, Gail Fincham interviews Henrietta Rose-Innes about her work, including her forthcoming fifth novel,…
Hip Hop is producing a new generation of readers and writers in a world that operates in diverse literary forms,…
With prose that sparkles and pops, Rémy Ngamije’s The Eternal Audience of One is a millennial novel that intricately traces…
The following is an edited excerpt from a work in progress by American author Adam Smyer, whose debut novel, Knucklehead,…
The JRB presents an excerpt from Civilising Grass: The Art of the Lawn on the South African Highveld by Jonathan…
Tracing the memory of bones, ‘a long thread of words that attempted to fulfil the universe’—Lara Buxbaum reviews The Old…
The JRB presents new short fiction by Editorial Advisory Panel member and regular contributor Wamuwi Mbao. ~ ~ ~ Beginnings….
The following two translations are responses to the sixth poem in The Interpreter of Desires, a cycle of sixty-one poems…
