Africa

‘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

As a novel centred on lesbian love set in an intensely homophobic country, These Letters End in Tears by Musih…

Academic

Creating interventionist ways of reading—Read an excerpt from Reading From the South: African Print Cultures and Oceanic Turns in Isabel Hofmeyr’s Work

The JRB presents an excerpt from Reading From the South: African Print Cultures and Oceanic Turns in Isabel Hofmeyr’s Work….

Book excerpts

‘The Pit was a place steeped in gloom, where people seldom went, and where certainly no one went alone’—Read an excerpt from Ashraf Kagee’s new novel By the Fading Light

The JRB presents an excerpt from By the Fading Light, the new novel from European Union Literary Award-winner Ashraf Kagee….

Fiction

A work of fiction that calls to us to rethink Palestine’s ‘normal’—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Against The Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa

Wamuwi Mbao reviews Susan Abulhawa’s Against The Loveless World, winner of the Palestine Book Award. Against The Loveless WorldSusan AbulhawaBloomsbury…

Poetry

Writing Athlone—Gabeba Baderoon’s latest poetry collection The History of Intimacy maps the small hurts of apartheid, writes Toni Giselle Stuart

Toni Giselle Stuart reviews Gabeba Baderoon’s poetry collection The History of Intimacy, which won the 2019 University of Johannesburg Main…

Africa

[Conversation Issue] ‘I won’t be polite, because there’s nothing polite about patriarchy’—Mona Eltahawy inspires (and triggers) at the Abantu Book Festival, reports Itumeleng Molefi

As part of our January Conversation Issue, Itumeleng Molefi reflects on Mona Eltahawy’s keynote address and conversation with Pumla Dineo…

Fiction

[Conversation Issue] ‘I wanted to throw back the curtain on some of the things and places that “nice” people avoid talking about’—Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan talks to Ben Williams about her bestselling Singlish novel Sarong Party Girls

As part of our January Conversation Issue, The JRB Publisher Ben Williams chats to Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan about her debut…