A stranger in ‘the Village’: Bongani Madondo remembers the magic of The Village Voice in print
When New York’s pout-fully punk weekly, The Village Voice, announced the end of its print issue last month, Gotham City…
Category: Essays
Brilliant, hilarious, eerily contemporary: Mbali Sikakana reflects on Fran Ross’s forgotten black feminist novel Oreo
Fran Ross’s wildly funny race satire, Oreo, was originally published in 1974, and instantly forgotten. Mbali Sikakana surveys the novel’s…
A literary Sarah Baartman: Sanya Osha considers the need for intellectual decolonisation in rereading Amos Tutuola
Amos Tutuola deserves contemplation as a writer independent of the clutches of anthropology, argues Sanya Osha. How can we foster…
Making space for women in South Africa’s political memory, or, the case of the non-intersection of Pixley ka Seme and Charlotte Maxeke Streets
Recently published biographies of Pixley ka Seme and Charlotte Maxeke reveal how women’s histories become insignificant back roads in the…
A guide for writing from the outside in: Sisonke Msimang on how Howard W French maps the road between the Africa of her childhood and the China of her imagination
In his three books on Africa–China relations, Howard W French’s thinking is robust—sometimes forcefully so—and yet fundamentally respectful. A…
James Baldwin in Rhodesia: Percy Zvomuya picks out a thread from the forgotten war book Black Fire!
In the late nineteen-seventies, James Baldwin encountered an ‘extraordinary and illuminating’ Rhodesian book, which influenced his thought around black rage…
‘A writer utterly in control of her medium’: Wamuwi Mbao reviews Scaachi Koul’s glittering collection of essays, One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter
In her debut collection of essays, One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, Scaachi Koul delivers…
Rights of Conquest, Rights of Desire: Panashe Chigumadzi considers the black female body through a return to JM Coetzee’s Disgrace
This is an an edited excerpt of a longer essay appearing in Panashe Chigumadzi’s forthcoming book, provisionally titled Beautiful Hair…
[City Editor] The place of the ancestors: Niq Mhlongo leaves the city to walk the hills of Mapungubwe
The JRB’s City Editor Niq Mhlongo takes some time out from sitting under his apricot tree in Soweto to visit…
[Sponsored] Reflecting Rogue – the hotly anticipated new book from Pumla Dineo Gqola
Reflecting Rogue is the much anticipated and brilliant collection of experimental autobiographical essays on power, pleasure and South African culture by…
‘How to write about everything’—Binyavanga Wainaina on the problems faced by African writers, and how to overcome them
Binyavanga Wainaina spoke eloquently about his writing career and his life, and how the two are intertwined, at Wits University…
[The JRB Daily] Turbulent, hopeful and long overdue: Henrietta Rose-Innes considers transformation in South African literature in the Times Literary Supplement
The United Kingdom release of Henrietta Rose-Innes’s latest novel, Green Lion, is imminent, and to mark the occasion she has written…
The Johannesburg Review of Books Vol. 1, Issue 3 (July 2017)
The third issue of The Johannesburg Review of Books is here, with some big reviews, in-depth interviews and quality ruminations…
‘Three great hopes for a post-apartheid culture, gone too soon’—Hedley Twidle reflects on Phaswane Mpe, Moses Taiwa Molelekwa and K Sello Duiker
Firepool: Experiences in an Abnormal World Hedley Twidle Kwela, 2017 The following is an excerpt from Firepool: Experiences in an…
Writes of passage, an urban memoir: How a Pan-African journal and American glossies put Bongani Madondo on the Write Path
Sigh the Beloved Country: Braai Talk, Rock ‘n’ Roll & Other Stories Bongani Madondo Picador Africa, 2016 Load up on…
The Johannesburg Review of Books Vol. 1, Issue 2 (June 2017)
The second issue of The Johannesburg Review of Books is here—replete with some of the finest writing on books and…
Step on the Bassline: Bongani Madondo unlocks a torrent of Joburg memories
I don’t believe any biographer can be objective. —Mark Gevisser … I saw a sign over a door in café…
‘I want my legs back’: A personal history of catastrophe by para-athlete Palesa ‘Deejay’ Manaleng
The JRB brings you an exclusive excerpt from a work in progress by Deejay Manaleng, which tells the story of…
New translation of select essays by Mohamed Kacimi
Over at Asymptote Journal, a selection of Algerian writer Mohamed Kacimi’s essays have been translated from French into English by…
Rest in Power, Pa Kojo: Paying tribute to Kojo Laing
Ghanaian novelist and poet B Kojo Laing passed away on Thursday, 20 April 2017 in Ghana. The JRB gathered tributes…
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…