Book excerpts

[Fiction Issue] ‘She’d often wondered how that cloak of impenetrable privilege would feel around her shoulders’—Read an excerpt from Lọlá Ákínmádé Åkerström’s In Every Mirror She’s Black

The JRB presents an excerpt from In Every Mirror She’s Black, the debut novel by Lọlá Ákínmádé Åkerström. In Every…

Biography & Memoir

‘Startlingly good’—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Misfits: A Personal Manifesto by Michaela Coel, creator and star of the hit TV show I May Destroy You

Michaela Coel’s Misfits blends an effervescent sense of social realism with a beguiling clarity, writes Wamuwi Mbao. Misfits: A Personal…

Africa

‘Nothing, virtually no project, no cultural initiative, was left unbrushed by the CIA reptilian coils’—Wole Soyinka. Read an excerpt from White Malice: The CIA and the Neocolonisation of Africa

The JRB presents an excerpt from Susan Williams’s new book White Malice: The CIA and the Neocolonisation of Africa. White…

Africa

‘You gave me permission to lean into the terrible, of both myself and the people I wrote into existence’—Read an excerpt from Akwaeke Emezi’s new book Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir

The JRB presents an excerpt from Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir by Akwaeke Emezi. Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit…

Awards

[The JRB Daily] ‘It is the book I never thought I would get to write. I never thought I’d be well enough’—Susanna Clarke wins 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction for Piranesi

Susanna Clarke has been announced as the winner of the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction, for her second novel Piranesi….

Biography & Memoir

‘Grief—a word that seemed too small to encompass the world I had been plunged into’—Read Sisonke Msimang’s essay from Our Ghosts Were Once People: Stories on Death and Dying

In a new anthology on death and dying, Sisonke Msimang writes about the multiple losses faced when her mother passed…

Book excerpts

‘He could hear it. A sound that made his back grow cold, made the hair on his arms rise. It was the sound of bones’—Read an excerpt from An Island by Karen Jennings

The JRB presents an excerpt from Karen Jennings’s new novel An Island, which was recently longlisted for the Booker Prize….

Academic

‘He was no longer working for the colonial state, and had fully taken on his revolutionary status’—Read an excerpt from Amílcar Cabral: The Life of a Reluctant Nationalist

The JRB presents an excerpt from António Tomás’s new book Amílcar Cabral: The Life of a Reluctant Nationalist. Amílcar Cabral:…

Africa

‘Putting myself in those blood-soaked shoes was the most difficult thing to contend with’—Robert Jones Jr talks to Efemia Chela about his debut novel The Prophets

Contributing Editor Efemia Chela spoke to Robert Jones Jr about his debut novel, The Prophets. The ProphetsRobert Jones JrQuercus Publishing, 2021 Efemia…

Fiction

A work of fiction that calls to us to rethink Palestine’s ‘normal’—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Against The Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa

Wamuwi Mbao reviews Susan Abulhawa’s Against The Loveless World, winner of the Palestine Book Award. Against The Loveless WorldSusan AbulhawaBloomsbury…

Fiction

‘Most of the stories have been told by now, it’s just the ways of telling that are new’—Damon Galgut talks with Mark Gevisser about his new novel, The Promise

Damon Galgut was in conversation with Mark Gevisser recently for the launch of his latest novel, The Promise. This is…

Africa

View an excerpt from African Cosmologies: Photography, Time, and the Other, including work by Zanele Muholi, Hélène A Amouzou and Wilfred Ukpong

The JRB presents an excerpt from African Cosmologies: Photography, Time, and the Other. African Cosmologies: Photography, Time, and the OtherFotofestSchilt…

Africa

‘Temporary madness, in war, is bravery’s sister’—Read an excerpt from David Diop’s International Booker Prize-winning novel At Night All Blood Is Black

The JRB presents an excerpt from At Night All Blood Is Black, recent winner of the International Booker Prize. At…

Africa

[The JRB Daily] ‘It had jangled our emotions and blown our minds’—David Diop and Anna Moschovakis win the 2021 International Booker Prize for At Night All Blood is Black

Image: International Booker Prize At Night All Blood is Black, written by Senegalese–French author David Diop and translated by American…

Africa

[The JRB Daily] 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize regional winners announced—including Rwandan-born Namibian author Rémy Ngamije

Header image: Rémy Ngamije (Namibia), Roland Watson-Grant (Jamaica), Kanya D’Almeida (Sri Lanka), Carol Farrelly (UK), Katerina Gibson (Australia) The regional…