Alain Mabanckou’s new novel Les cigognes sont immortelles tackles a turbulent three days in Congolese history
Alain Mabanckou’s new novel, Les cigognes sont immortelles, spans three important days in the life of a Congolese boy from…
Category: International
Prix Femina and Prix Femina étranger longlists revealed—including Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and Olga Tokarczuk
It’s awards season in the French-speaking literary world! A number of big prizes revealed their longlists in the month of…
[The JRB Daily] ‘Remarkably diverse’ 2018 Man Booker Prize shortlist announced
The six authors shortlisted for the £50,000 Man Booker Prize have been announced—with 27-year-old debut novelist Daisy Johnson becoming the youngest…
[The JRB Daily] Shortlist announced for the $100,000 Nigeria Prize for Literature—Africa’s richest literary award
The shortlist for the 2018 Nigeria Prize for Literature has been announced. The prize was founded in 2004, and is awarded…
‘You have to write like a suicide bomber, you have to detonate’—Arundhati Roy discusses The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Arundhati Roy visited South Africa on a book tour recently, and sat down with The JRB to discuss her highly…
‘Utterly mysterious, and utterly worthy of our attention’—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Asymmetry, the debut novel by Lisa Halliday
Lisa Halliday’s debut Asymmetry is a genuinely surprising novel, which invites us to question how men and women are rendered in…
A kaleidoscopic novel of radiant beauty—Bongani Kona reviews the new English translation of Ondjaki’s Transparent City
In Transparent City, Ondjaki writes Angola not as an insignificant place in the margins of history but as if it…
‘Authors in the West don’t worry about whether Africa will understand them’—Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi discusses Kintu at Wits
Ugandan author Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi visited Wits University in August, for a discussion around her debut novel, Kintu. Kintu Jennifer…
A glorious mixture of low and high culture—Loftus Marais reviews Robin Robertson’s Man Booker Prize-longlisted book, The Long Take
The Long Take by Robin Robertson is longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize. Here is poet Loftus Marais’s short…
[Photo Editor] Original portraits of Arundhati Roy by Victor Dlamini
Victor Dlamini is The JRB’s Photo Editor. We feature his work on our Instagram channel. Don’t miss the ten-year retrospective…
Of Fathers and Grandfathers—Read an excerpt from House of Stone, the debut novel by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma
The JRB is proud to present an excerpt from House of Stone, the debut novel by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma. House of…
[City Editor] Tanzania and my Vagabond Neurosis—Niq Mhlongo contemplates his irresistible urge to travel
About five months ago a very close friend of mine invited me to his wedding. His big day was Saturday,…
Read an excerpt from Congolese–French author Wilfried N’sondé’s novel Un océan, deux mers, trois continents, winner of the Prix Ahmadou-Kourouma
Un océan, deux mers, trois continents is the realisation of an idea I had forming in my mind for about…
[The JRB Daily] ‘You can’t hide who you are when writing fiction’—Arundhati Roy considers the legacy of VS Naipaul
Indian writer Arundhati Roy, in South Africa on a book tour, sat down with The JRB to discuss her books…
[The JRB Daily] Remembering VS Naipaul in South Africa
VS Naipaul, who died aged eighty-five on Saturday, spent some months in South Africa in 2009, researching his final book….
Novuyo Rosa Tshuma and Panashe Chigumadzi in conversation—Meditations on the traumas and triumphs of Zimbabwe’s histories
‘History is created in the mouth …’ Novuyo Rosa Tshuma and The JRB Contributing Editor Panashe Chigumadzi both have new…
Nelson Mandela’s ‘new’ collection of prison dispatches signs his name across our hearts: Bongani Madondo reviews The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela
Torn for so long between anxiety and awe at the idolisation of Nelson Mandela, The JRB Contributing Editor Bongani Madondo…
‘Historical fiction is a way of fighting rootlessness’—Ayesha Harruna Attah discusses her new novel The Hundred Wells of Salaga
Ayesha Harruna Attah’s new novel, The Hundred Wells of Salaga, has just been published by Cassava Republic Press. She chatted…
How to eat a small child–Yemisi Aribisala considers the question of representation in books for children of colour and the legacy of Little Black Sambo
Yemisi Aribisala recalls her first encounter with Little Black Sambo, and asks: Who is responsible if the image of the…
‘We should wrench the power away from the West and determine our own canon’—Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi talks to CA Davids about her novel Kintu
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is in South Africa in August to discuss her lauded debut novel, Kintu. She spoke to CA…
[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…
A curiously enthralling existentialist novel—Wamuwi Mbao reviews OK, Mr Field, the debut novel by South African poet Katharine Kilalea
OK, Mr Field, the debut novel by acclaimed South African poet Katharine Kilalea, is a pleasingly minimalist, idiosyncratic novel, writes…
‘Language switching is the norm in Kenya; I just wrote the way we speak’—Makena Onjerika chats to The JRB about her Caine Prize success
2018 Caine Prize for African Writing winner Makena Onjerika chatted to The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec about her plans to…
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…
[City Editor] Borders and books—Niq Mhlongo travels to Nairobi with ninety of his novels
Before I leave Johannesburg for Nairobi, Kenya, my friend and fellow author Zukiswa Wanner warns me not to bring more…
Seoul and Sky: JMG Le Clézio’s new novel, Bitna, sous le ciel de Séoul
2008 Nobel Prize-winning Franco-Mauritian author JMG Le Clézio has dipped his pen into the world of transnational literature again, but…
‘Kasala for Myself’—New jazz-suffused poetry from Fiston Mwanza Mujila featured in Asymptote, in English and French
In their Summer issue, Asymptote Journal features new poetry from Congolese author Fiston Mwanza Mujila. Eschewing the more chaotic and…
[The JRB Daily] 2018 Man Booker Prize longlist announced—no African authors for the second year running
The 2018 Man Booker Prize longlist has been announced, including a graphic novel for the first time. The £50,000 prize had…
[The JRB Daily] Masande Ntshanga, Omar Robert Hamilton, Anietie Isong and Kayo Chingonyi among the winners at the 2018 Society of Authors Authors’ Awards
Five African authors are among the winners of the 2018 Society of Authors Authors’ Awards. The awards distribute the United…
[The JRB Daily] The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje honoured as the greatest-ever winner of the Man Booker Prize
Michael Ondaatje’s ‘transformative’ novel The English Patient has won the Golden Man Booker Prize, a one-off award for the best work of…
[The JRB Daily] Kenyan writer Makena Onjerika wins the 2018 Caine Prize for African Writing
Kenyan writer Makena Onjerika has won the nineteenth edition of the Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story…
Emerging from Chinua Achebe’s shadow: Nigeria’s first generation of post-independence writers and the literary brotherhood of Umuahia
This July marks the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of Chinua Achebe’s seminal novel Things Fall Apart. Lebohang Mojapelo reviews…
Bucking against the inevitability of her martyrdom—The Negressity of Black womenhood and The Ones With Purpose
Mbali Sikakana considers Nozizwe Cynthia Jele’s new novel The Ones With Purpose in the context of Hilton Als’s groundbreaking 1996…
Reading social reality in the writhing surface of the city—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Colson Whitehead’s The Colossus of New York
Colson Whitehead’s The Colossus of New York, reissued fourteen years after its first publication, endures in the quality of its writing and…
‘Dark history is good for literature’—Bongani Kona chats to Argentine author Mariana Enriquez about her English debut, Things We Lost in the Fire
Mariana Enríquez, a writer and editor based in Buenos Aires, will be at the Open Book Festival in Cape Town…
The over-intellectualisation of desire—Efemia Chela reviews Anne Garréta’s newly translated memoir Not One Day
The JRB Francophone and Contributing Editor Efemia Chela reviews Not One Day, Anne Garréta’s memoir and the second of her books to be…
[The JRB Daily] 2017 Short Story Day Africa Prize winner announced
Nigerian writer Tochukwu Emmanuel Okafor has won the prestigious Short Story Day Africa Prize for his story ‘All Our Lives’. The…
[The JRB Daily] Masande Ntshanga, Omar Robert Hamilton, Anietie Isong and Kayo Chingonyi shortlisted for Society of Authors 2018 Authors’ Awards
Four African authors have been shortlisted for the Society of Authors 2018 Authors’ Awards. South African novelist Masande Ntshanga and…
[The JRB Daily] Irish author Mike McCormack wins ‘world’s richest annual literary prize’ for his one-sentence novel Solar Bones
Irish author Mike McCormack has won the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award for his novel Solar Bones. The 270-page novel…
[The JRB Daily] Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie awarded 2018 PEN Pinter Prize for ‘fierce intellectual determination to define the real truth of our lives and our societies’
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been awarded the 2018 PEN Pinter Prize. The prize is awarded annually to a writer who, in the…