Academic

‘Powerful drama fused with its cerebral yet emotional writing’—Read Njabulo S Ndebele’s Foreword to the 60th anniversary edition of William ‘Bloke’ Modisane’s Blame Me on History

The JRB presents Njabulo S Ndebele’s Foreword to the new sixtieth-anniversary edition of William ‘Bloke’ Modisane’s Blame Me on History….

Biography & Memoir

‘There was a heated discussion about me going to work for this “native” paper’—Read an excerpt from Freedom Writer, the memoir of legendary journalist Juby Mayet

The JRB presents an excerpt from Freedom Writer: My Life and Times by the late Juby Mayet. Freedom Writer: My…

Academic

‘Your story told by someone else might in the end be richer’—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Culture and Liberation, the first dedicated collection of Alex La Guma’s exile writing

Culture and Liberation: Exile Writings, 1966–1985Alex La GumaEdited by Christopher J LeeSeagull Books 1966 was an interesting year. Future Trump…

Academic

‘Navigating the reality of his blackness in an oppressive state’—Read an excerpt from Can Themba: The Making and Breaking of the Intellectual Tsotsi by Siphiwo Mahala

The JRB presents an excerpt from Siphiwo Mahala’s new biography, Can Themba: The Making and Breaking of the Intellectual Tsotsi….

Drama

‘They wrote to each other frequently, exchanged intellectual banter, confided in each other’—Siphiwo Mahala chats about his new play, Bloke and His American Bantu

The JRB presents an interview with Siphiwo Mahala about his new play, Bloke and His American Bantu.  Bloke and His…

Africa

‘Nothing, virtually no project, no cultural initiative, was left unbrushed by the CIA reptilian coils’—Wole Soyinka. Read an excerpt from White Malice: The CIA and the Neocolonisation of Africa

The JRB presents an excerpt from Susan Williams’s new book White Malice: The CIA and the Neocolonisation of Africa. White…

Academic

Hiding in Plain Sight: Cold War Interventions into African Literature—Bhakti Shringarpure reviews Monica Popescu’s At Penpoint: African Literatures, Postcolonial Studies, and the Cold War

Monica Popescu’s At Penpoint: African Literatures, Postcolonial Studies, and the Cold War is a steadfast engagement with the cultural Cold…

Fiction

‘I have turned my car into a mobile bookshop’—Siphiwo Mahala chats to Jennifer Malec about self-publishing his new book, Red Apple Dreams, and why short stories are the future

The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec chats to Siphiwo Mahala about his new collection of short stories, Red Apple Dreams. Mahala…

Africa

Wider than the Black Atlantic—Bongani Madondo listens in on Kwame Brathwaite’s visual sounds of Blackness, from the photo book Black Is Beautiful

Contributing Editor Bongani Madondo unmoors Kwame Brathwaite’s Black Is Beautiful from mono-dimensional notions of the Black Atlantic into a New African Globalism of…

Essays

‘Baldwin the symbol of black transgression and global black anger is simply peerless’—Bongani Madondo on If Beale Street Could Talk, the book and Oscar-winning film

James Baldwin’s novel of half a century ago, If Beale Street Could Talk, now reissued by Penguin Random House, was…

Academic

[Conversation Issue] ‘Intersectionality seems so blindingly obvious a notion’—Zoë Wicomb in conversation with Andrew van der Vlies, from their new book Race, Nation, Translation

As part of our January Conversation Issue, we present an excerpted interview from a new collection of Zoë Wicomb’s writing, Race,…

Book excerpts

‘Spending time with Bra Willie is the closest thing to being in touch with the soul of this country’: Read Mandla Langa’s Introduction to Keorapetse Kgositsile’s Homesoil in My Blood

Homesoil in My Blood: A Trilogy Keorapetse Kgositsile Xarra Books, 2018 Exclusive to The JRB, we present author Mandla Langa’s…