Academic

A profoundly beautiful exploration of what ageing means for those who lived in compact with racial separation—Wamuwi Mbao reviews God’s Waiting Room by Casey Golomski

What does it mean to want grace after such a thing as apartheid? What might it look like? God’s Waiting…

Academic

Omar Badsha: an ordinary South African whose struggles and triumphs offer insights into broader social movements—Sean Jacobs reviews Available Light by Daniel Magaziner

Available Light continues Daniel Magaziner’s significant work in shedding light on the lives of Black artists and intellectuals under apartheid,…

Academic

‘The centre of my world is going to be where I say it is’—An interview with Ellah Wakatama on African publishing, excerpted from Imprint Africa

The JRB presents an interview with Ellah Wakatama, facilitated by Joel Cabrita, excerpted from Imprint Africa: Conversations with African Women…

Academic

‘They began to see that science was not isolated from politics but shaped by it’—Read an excerpt from Our Science, Ourselves by Christa Kuljian

The JRB presents an excerpt from Christa Kuljian’s new book, Our Science, Ourselves: How Gender, Race, and Social Movements Shaped…

Academic

‘Africans are free only to the extent of breathing’—Read an excerpt from An Ethos of Transdisciplinarity: Conversations with Toyin Falola by Sanya Osha

The JRB presents an excerpt from Sanya Osha’s latest book An Ethos of Transdisciplinarity: Conversations with Toyin Falola. An Ethos…

Academic

Read ‘The Complexities of Intimacy for Black Middle-Class Women’, excerpted from Love in Jozi: The Black Middle Class, Love and Intimacy in Johannesburg

The JRB presents an excerpt from Love in Jozi: The Black Middle Class, Love and Intimacy in Johannesburg, edited by…

Academic

‘In Africa, the conservative realism of the military mind met the liberatory spirit of the decolonising mind’—Read an excerpt from Soldier’s Paradise by Samuel Fury Childs Daly

The JRB presents an excerpt from Samuel Fury Childs Daly’s new book, Soldier’s Paradise: Militarism in Africa After Empire.  Soldier′s…

Academic

‘Ngangizwa kahle ukuthi ukuhumusha kuyangikhulisa, kungisabalalisela ingqondo’—Makhosazana Xaba chats to Musawenkosi Cabe about her isiZulu translation of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth

Udliwano ndlebe mayelana nokuhushushwa kwengcwadi ka Frantz Fanon, Izimpabanga Zomhlaba, phakathi komhumushi uMakhosazana Xaba no Musawenkosi Cabe. This is a…

Academic

The place of death in the struggle for freedom in South Africa—Read an excerpt from Jacob Dlamini’s new book Dying for Freedom: Political Martyrdom in South Africa

The JRB presents an excerpt from Dying for Freedom: Political Martyrdom in South Africa, the new book by Jacob Dlamini. Dying…

Academic

[The JRB Daily] Morabo Morojele and Jarred Thompson win 2024 UJ Prizes for South African Writing in English for ‘masterful’ and ‘extraordinarily original’ novels

Morabo Morojele and Jarred Thompson have been announced as the winners of the 2024 University of Johannesburg Prizes for South…

Academic

‘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

The JRB presents an excerpt from Masande Ntshanga’s essay ‘Technologies of Conquest: On Writing the Dystopian through South Africa’s Past,…

Academic

‘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

The JRB presents an excerpt from Dayspring, the forthcoming memoir by CJ Driver, edited and with a foreword by Nobel…

Academic

Continuities between Tswana worlds and Black world politics—Read an excerpt from Keorapetse Kgositsile and the Black Arts Movement by Uhuru Portia Phalafala

The JRB presents an excerpt from Uhuru Portia Phalafala’s new book, Keorapetse Kgositsile and the Black Arts Movement. Keorapetse Kgositsile…

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….

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….

Academic

A decolonisation that dare not speak its name—George Hull reviews Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò’s Against Decolonisation: Taking African Agency Seriously

George Hull reviews Against Decolonisation: Taking African Agency Seriously by Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò. Against Decolonisation: Taking African Agency SeriouslyOlúfẹ́mi TáíwòHurst &…

Academic

‘Riotous Deathscapes charts a course of black life in vast deathscapes. It is a portrait of life among the dead’—an excerpt from Hugo ka Canham’s new book

The JRB presents an excerpt from Hugo ka Canham’s forthcoming book Riotous Deathscapes, to be published mid-May.  Riotous DeathscapesHugo ka…

Academic

A book about embrace, but also about the chokehold of segregation—Carina Venter reviews Mr Entertainment: The Story of Taliep Petersen by Paula Fourie

Carina Venter reviews Paula Fourie’s Mr Entertainment: The Story of Taliep Petersen, finding a life that encompasses a country and…

Academic

‘Every African who has been paying attention to the global Covid-19 response is angry. Listen to us as we tell you why.’—Read an excerpt from Strange and Difficult Times

The JRB presents an excerpt from Strange and Difficult Times: Notes on a Global Pandemic by Nanjala Nyabola. Strange and…

Academic

‘Pajubá as Queer Articulation of the Black Atlantic’ by Caio Simões de Araújo—an excerpt from Changing Theory: Concepts from the Global South

The JRB presents an excerpt from Caio Simões de Araújo’s chapter ‘Pajubá’, from the new essay collection Changing Theory: Concepts…

Academic

[The JRB Daily] Shortlists announced for 2022 UJ Prizes for South African Writing in English (Plus: winners of Creative Writing in isiZulu and Sesotho sa Leboa, and Literary Translation)

The shortlists for the annual University of Johannesburg Prizes for South African Writing in English have been announced. The 2022…