On Noni Jabavu and the return home—Makhosazana Xaba celebrates one of South Africa’s foundational literary centenarians
This August marks one hundred years since the birth of Noni Jabavu. Makhosazana Xaba reflects on the life of this…
Category: Academic
Remember the African Renaissance? Adekeye Adebajo reviews Building Blocks Towards an African Century: Essays in Honour of Thabo Mbeki, which shines a partial light on presidential ambition and influence
Celebrating Africa’s Philosopher-King—Adekeye Adebajo reviews Building Blocks Towards an African Century: Essays in Honour of Thabo Mbeki. Building Blocks Towards an…
‘I didn’t seem to exist. It felt easier that way’—Es’kia Mphahlele. Read an excerpt from Like Family: Domestic Workers in South African History and Literature
The JRB presents an extract from Like Family: Domestic Workers in South African History and Literature, by Ena Jansen. Like…
Dry like steel: A wrecking ball of a book—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Adam Habib’s Rebels and Rage: Reflecting on #FeesMustFall
Wamuwi Mbao reviews Rebels and Rage: Reflecting on #FeesMustFall by Adam Habib, finding it engrossing, but ultimately unconvincing. Rebels and Rage: Reflecting on #FeesMustFall…
‘A literary con’—Hedley Twidle rereads Familiarity is the Kingdom of the Lost by Dugmore Boetie, the joker in the pack of Sophiatown-era life writing
In this excerpt from his forthcoming book on non-fiction in South African literature, Experiments with Truth, Hedley Twidle revisits Dugmore…
[The JRB Daily] Commemorate Human Rights Day with an exclusive excerpt from Lie on Your Wounds: The Prison Correspondence of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe
Header image: Book cover (left); and Sobukwe, inside the grounds of Orlando Police Station, awaiting arrest, on the morning of 21…
[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,…
[The JRB Daily] Top 10 of 2018—A look back at our most popular articles of the year
This December marked the twentieth issue of The JRB, and the twelfth of the year. With the festive season reaching…
[The JRB Daily] [World Aids Day] Two Koos Prinsloo short stories translated into English for the first time—among the first fictional texts about HIV/Aids in South Africa
In The JRB’s forthcoming Fiction Issue, we will feature two short stories by Koos Prinsloo, published for the first time…
[The JRB Daily] Panashe Chigumadzi wins 2018 Brittle Paper Award for Rights of Conquest, Rights of Desire, published in The JRB
The winners of the 2018 Brittle Paper Awards have been announced—including Panashe Chigumadzi, for her essay ‘History Through the Body or Rights…
Johannesburg’s literary subterranean horror—Read an excerpt from South African Gothic by Rebecca Duncan
The JRB presents an excerpt from South African Gothic: Anxiety and Creative Dissent in the Post-apartheid Imagination and Beyond by…
The 2018 Sol Plaatje Lecture: Kole Omotoso on The Power of Politics, the Power of Literatures—Sol Plaatje and the Madness of Making Humanity Shudder
This year’s Annual Sol Plaatje Lecture was delivered on 17 October at Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley, by Professor Kole Omotoso….
[The JRB Daily] Siphiwo Mahala delivers his inaugural postdoctoral address at the premiere of his new documentary on Can Themba
Author Siphiwo Mahala gave gave his inaugural postdoctoral address last night at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg, as part of a…
The Durban Riots and an ‘ambitious re-examination’ of the relationship between Africans and Indians–Alex Lichtenstein reviews Jon Soske’s Internal Frontiers
By recentering the narrative on Durban and Natal, rather than Johannesburg and the Transvaal, Jon Soske modifies the established account…
View from the privileged heights of the JIAS Castle: Zukiswa Wanner and Niq Mhlongo reflect on their writing fellowship
The JRB City Editor Niq Mhlongo and Zukiswa Wanner have both just published new books—Soweto, Under the Apricot Tree and…
Decolonisation is generating your own knowledge and understandings: Tawana Kupe discusses the new Wits-based African Centre for the Study of the United States
The African Centre for the Study of the United States (ACSUS), a new research centre based at Wits University, Johannesburg,…
‘Imagination is everything’: Paul Gilroy chats to The JRB about race, land and South Africa’s role in overthrowing the racial order
The JRB’s Academic Editor Simon van Schalkwyk spoke to UK academic, historian and philosopher Paul Gilroy, who was in Johannesburg…
Africanism and Afrofuturism: Imraan Coovadia considers Blackness, Black Panther and Achille Mbembe’s Critique of Black Reason
Achille Mbembe’s vision is a guide to the revolution that stands on the other side of revolution, writes Imraan Coovadia. Critique…
Letter: Translating Augustine—Sarah Ruden responds to David van Schoor
Sarah Ruden responds to David van Schoor’s letter, published in our January issue, addressing Ruden’s response to Van Schuur’s review…
Letter: David van Schoor responds to Sarah Ruden
David van Schoor responds to Sarah Ruden’s letter, published in our December issue, addressing Van Schoor’s review of her translation…
Letter: Sarah Ruden responds to David van Schoor’s review of her translation of Augustine’s Confessions
Sarah Ruden responds to David van Schoor’s review of her translation of Augustine’s Confessions, ‘Translation as nuclear arms race’, published in the November…
Beware of angels and other executives of perfection: Wamuwi Mbao appraises JM Coetzee’s Late Essays
Like watching JM Coetzee solve a series of Rubik’s cubes, only more entertaining: Wamuwi Mbao reviews Late Essays: 2006–2017. Late Essays: 2006–2017…
Translation as nuclear arms race: David van Schoor reviews Sarah Ruden’s bold interpretation of Augustine’s Confessions
David van Schoor reviews Sarah Ruden’s bold new translation of Augustine’s Confessions. Confessions Sarah Ruden Modern Library, 2017 1. Sine…
Read an excerpt from the first full-length biography of Christopher Okigbo, a cult hero for a new wave of young African writers
Exclusive to The JRB, an excerpt from the newly published first-ever biography of the Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo: Christopher Okigbo 1930—67, Thirsting…
[The JRB Daily] Open call for applications for the Malba Writers Residency in Buenos Aires
Open call REM—Malba Writers Residence Annual application: From 5 October to 5 December, 2017 Residences: April-May; September-October, 2018 The Literature…
Phil Bonner, 1945—2017, RIP
Phil Bonner, leading historian and Africanist scholar, passed away in Johannesburg on Sunday, 24 September, aged seventy-two. Bonner was Professor…
[The JRB Daily] JM Coetzee reads a new story, ‘The Glass Abattoir’, and announces a new book to feature Elizabeth Costello
As part of the programme for an international congress on ‘The work of John Maxwell Coetzee in Latin America’, JM…
[Exclusive interview and audio] ‘White fragility ends discussions … and ends lives’: Claudia Rankine speaks in Soweto
‘In the US we have just elected a government committed to white supremacy. Tonight I wanted to talk about what…
Finding beauty under apartheid: Interview with Dan Magaziner, and excerpt from his book The Art of Life in South Africa
The Art of Life in South Africa Dan Magaziner UKZN Press, 2017 Main image: Ndaleni group shot, late 1970s, Ndaleni…
On Things Fall Apart and Things Falling Apart—Simon van Schalkwyk considers modernism in the here and now
1. Chinua Achebe, modernist What might it mean to offer a suite of lectures on Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart…
Spectacular collisions of perspectives in Grace A Musila’s A Death Retold in Truth and Rumour: Kenya, Britain and the Julie Ward Murder
A Death Retold in Truth and Rumour: Kenya, Britain and the Julie Ward Murder Grace A Musila James Currey 2015…