Despite a strong heritage stretching back more than a century, South African fiction remains largely unfamiliar—apart from a handful of…
James Baldwin’s novel of half a century ago, If Beale Street Could Talk, now reissued by Penguin Random House, was…
The JRB Poetry Editor Rustum Kozain reviews David Austin’s new book Dread Poetry and Freedom: Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Unfinished Revolution, finding…
Lebohang Mojapelo reviews Ngũgĩ: Reflections on His Life of Writing, a collection of essays that reflects on the life and work of Ngũgĩ…
The JRB presents an excerpt from Vintage Love and Other Essays by Jolyon Nuttall. Vintage Love Jolyon Nuttall Jacana Media, 2018 …
As part of our January Conversation Issue, The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec talks to Chigozie Obioma about his forthcoming ‘African cosmological novel’, An Orchestra…
As part of our January Conversation Issue, Mbali Sikakana contemplates the significance of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s recent discussion with Pumla…
Three African authors have made the longlist for the International Dublin Literary Award, the world’s most valuable annual literary prize for…
As Bongani Madondo experienced tinges of nostalgia occasioned by the twentieth anniversary of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, HipHop Feminist…
It’s a strange time to be writing a comedy of manners about moneyed New Yorkers, but Patrick deWitt’s French Exit…
Fred Khumalo recalls being swept off his feet by Alan Paton, the African Writers Series and James Hadley Chase. It’s a question…
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…
Lisa Halliday’s debut Asymmetry is a genuinely surprising novel, which invites us to question how men and women are rendered in…
The Long Take by Robin Robertson is longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize. Here is poet Loftus Marais’s short…
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is in South Africa in August to discuss her lauded debut novel, Kintu. She spoke to CA…
By recentering the narrative on Durban and Natal, rather than Johannesburg and the Transvaal, Jon Soske modifies the established account…
The 2018 Man Booker Prize longlist has been announced, including a graphic novel for the first time. The £50,000 prize had…
Mbali Sikakana considers Nozizwe Cynthia Jele’s new novel The Ones With Purpose in the context of Hilton Als’s groundbreaking 1996…
Colson Whitehead’s The Colossus of New York, reissued fourteen years after its first publication, endures in the quality of its writing and…
Zinzi Clemmons was in South Africa recently on a book tour for her debut novel, What We Lose. She sat…
Ableism and the silent roar: The JRB Francophone and Contributing Editor Efemia Chela travels to Burundi with Roland Rugero’s novel Baho! in The…
Exclusive to The JRB, listen to a recording of Zinzi Clemmons reading from her debut novel, What We Lose. What…
The JRB is proud to present an excerpt from Roland Rugero’s novel Baho!—the first Burundian novel to be translated from French…
Author Zinzi Clemmons, who is in Johannesburg on a book tour, sat down with The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec today…
The African Centre for the Study of the United States (ACSUS), a new research centre based at Wits University, Johannesburg,…
Richard Poplak reviews 12 Rules For Life by Jordan B Peterson, ‘the most influential public intellectual in the Western world…
Queer Africa 2: New Stories, a short story collection edited by The JRB Patron Makhosazana Xaba and Karen Martin, has…
Wamuwi Mbao reviews Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, winner of the 2017 National Book Award for fiction. Sing, Unburied, Sing Jesmyn…
The Monk of Mokha’s easygoing optimism glides over the prejudices and hatred that underdog minorities face in the United States,…
TO Molefe believes Raoul Peck should have claimed I Am Not Your Negro as a new, original work, not as James…
Second-wave feminism, mansplained: Diane Awerbuck finds much to disappoint in Stephen and Owen King’s Sleeping Beauties. Sleeping Beauties Stephen King…
Fear of a black planet, rather than ‘economic anxiety’, gnaws at the West’s hallowed liberal democratic principles, writes Lebohang Mojapelo….
Ta-Nehisi Coates is not the voice of black people—and, crucially, neither does he aspire to be, writes Kibo Ngowi. We…
Sarah Ruden responds to David van Schoor’s letter, published in our January issue, addressing Ruden’s response to Van Schuur’s review…
As part of our January Conversation Issue, Ben Williams talks to Jonathan Franzen. Purity Jonathan Franzen Fourth Estate, 2016 American…
David van Schoor responds to Sarah Ruden’s letter, published in our December issue, addressing Van Schoor’s review of her translation…
South Africa’s National Poet Laureate, Keorapetse ‘Bra Willie’ Kgositsile, has died in Johannesburg. Kgositsile passed away at Milpark Hospital in…
The JRB’s Editor takes a look back at 2017 and picks out the single work that left the biggest impression….
The longlist for the 2017 9mobile Prize for Literature (formerly the Etisalat Prize for Literature) has been announced. South African…
The JRB presents City Editor Niq Mhlongo’s short story ‘Four Blocks Away’. The story is excerpted from Mhlongo’s most recent book,…
