Eben Venter presented the world debut of his first visual exhibition, ‘Translate Yourself’, at the February Lectures conference at the…
As part of our January Conversation Issue, we present an excerpted interview from a new collection of Zoë Wicomb’s writing, Race,…
As part of our January Conversation Issue, read Amatesiro Dore’s Letter to a Young Queer Intellectual. How far, I’ve been…
In The JRB’s forthcoming Fiction Issue, we will feature two short stories by Koos Prinsloo, published for the first time…
The winners of the 2018 Brittle Paper Awards have been announced—including Panashe Chigumadzi, for her essay ‘History Through the Body or Rights…
As Bongani Madondo experienced tinges of nostalgia occasioned by the twentieth anniversary of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, HipHop Feminist…
A giant of black feminist writing and thought, Maryse Condé was recently awarded the New Academy Prize in Literature, a…
Constructed around a feminist, though dystopian, future, Nnedi Okorafor’s novel Who Fears Death—now reissued some eight years after its first…
Wamuwi Mbao imagines a serial adaptation of Angela Makholwa’s Black Widow Society, a sleekly executed interpretation of HJ Golakai’s The Lazarus…
The JRB presents ‘Afrofuturism: Ayashis’ Amateki’, an essay by Mohale Mashigo, which serves as the preface to her new collection…
Fred Khumalo recalls being swept off his feet by Alan Paton, the African Writers Series and James Hadley Chase. It’s a question…
At a recent Johannesburg symposium on the life of literary icon Can Themba, organised by author Siphiwo Mahala as a…
Yemisi Aribisala recalls her first encounter with Little Black Sambo, and asks: Who is responsible if the image of the…
Mbali Sikakana considers Nozizwe Cynthia Jele’s new novel The Ones With Purpose in the context of Hilton Als’s groundbreaking 1996…
Pwaangulongii Dauod has won the R25 000 Gerald Kraak Award, which honours African writing and photography that ‘provokes thought on the…
Ntombizikhona Valela considers two very different books, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s 491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69 and Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob’s…
Fred Khumalo, whose most recent novel is Dancing the Death Drill, believes past narratives can help shape what is to…
Zadie Smith’s new collection of essays, Feel Free, is a too-rare pleasure, writes The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec. Not many…
Image: Bob Marley performing at the Zimbabwe Independence celebration, Rufaro Stadium, Harare, 18 April 1980 The new issue of Chimurenga’s…
Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire reviews Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s Kintu, which was recently awarded a prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction. Kintu Jennifer…
Homesoil in My Blood: A Trilogy Keorapetse Kgositsile Xarra Books, 2018 Exclusive to The JRB, we present author Mandla Langa’s…
Margie Orford, President Emerita of PEN South Africa and board member of PEN International, on the PEN International Women’s Manifesto,…
TO Molefe believes Raoul Peck should have claimed I Am Not Your Negro as a new, original work, not as James…
An exhibition of JM Coetzee’s newly discovered childhood photography was recently held in Cape Town. Wamuwi Mbao was there. With…
Second-wave feminism, mansplained: Diane Awerbuck finds much to disappoint in Stephen and Owen King’s Sleeping Beauties. Sleeping Beauties Stephen King…
Ta-Nehisi Coates is not the voice of black people—and, crucially, neither does he aspire to be, writes Kibo Ngowi. We…
Kwezilomso Mbandazayo, known as the womxn who loaned her name to Khwezi, Jacob Zuma’s rape accuser, offers a personal reflection…
The JRB’s Editor takes a look back at 2017 and picks out the single work that left the biggest impression….
The author visited Harare, Zimbabwe shortly after the military intervention that led to President Robert Mugabe’s resignation on 21 November,…
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…
In a piece for the Caine Prize blog titled ‘An Unexpected Prize’, Efemia Chela describes how losing out on the…
Writing for the New Yorker, The JRB Editorial Advisory Panel member Petina Gappah contemplates ‘How Zimbabwe Freed Itself From Robert Mugabe’. Mugabe’s resignation…
The New York Review of Books has featured an article by Panashe Chigumadzi, titled ‘Soap and South Africa’s “Fatal Intimacy”‘….
Exclusive to The JRB, a new essay by Petina Gappah on the influence of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s work on her…
Efemia Chela reviews Marie NDiaye’s newly translated masterpiece My Heart Hemmed In, a mixture of literary fiction, psychological thriller and…
Niq Mhlongo recounts his literary travels to Accra, Ghana—in 2008, for the Pan-African Literary Forum, and in 2017 for the…
Olivia Rose Walton considers loss and erasure across two landscapes, traversed by train. 1. Kayseri station, Turkey On the steps…
David van Schoor reviews Sarah Ruden’s bold new translation of Augustine’s Confessions. Confessions Sarah Ruden Modern Library, 2017 1. Sine…
Efemia Chela travels to the dirty and dangerous streets of Mauritius with Ananda Devi’s Eve Out of Her Ruins in…
When New York’s pout-fully punk weekly, The Village Voice, announced the end of its print issue last month, Gotham City…
