Academic

‘Black women’s imaginative works are wreaths lain on the graves of ancestors so that they may not weep.’—Read an excerpt from Panashe Chigumadzi’s essay ‘Hearing the Silence’

The JRB presents an excerpt from a new essay by The JRB Contributing Editor Panashe Chigumadzi, from Surfacing: On Being…

Africa

Bearing witness to unusual childhoods of privilege under oppression—Panashe Chigumadzi reviews Township Girls: The Cross-Over Generation

A significant first step in documenting the life writing of black Zimbabwean women—The JRB Contributing Editor Panashe Chigumadzi reviews Township Girls:…

Africa

[The JRB Daily] 2018 Brittle Paper Award shortlists announced, recognising the ‘finest original pieces of writing by Africans published online’

The shortlists for the 2018 Brittle Paper Awards have been announced. The awards were established in 2017 to recognise the…

Africa

[The JRB Exclusive] ‘The colonisers were right: the mbira is dangerous’—Read an excerpt from Panashe Chigumadzi’s new book These Bones Will Rise Again

Chigumadzi’s exploration of personal, family and national history reincarnates in stark, vivid images, many of those interred in the shadows…

Africa

[Conversation Issue] [City Editor] Niq Mhlongo reveals how he missed his own debut book launch, leading to an astounding moment at the Abantu Book Festival twelve years later

As part of our January Conversation Issue, The JRB presents City Editor Niq Mhlongo’s keynote speech from the 2017 BRICS…

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Fiction

‘What is the acceptable amount of blood for good literature?’ Panashe Chigumadzi reviews Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness Arundhati Roy Hamish Hamilton/Penguin Random House, 2017 Algebra. For the last twenty years Arundhati Roy…