Academic

‘Navigating the reality of his blackness in an oppressive state’—Read an excerpt from Can Themba: The Making and Breaking of the Intellectual Tsotsi by Siphiwo Mahala

The JRB presents an excerpt from Siphiwo Mahala’s new biography, Can Themba: The Making and Breaking of the Intellectual Tsotsi….

Biography & Memoir

A man at the forefront of the fight for Black liberation—Read an excerpt from Now You Know How Mapetla Died: The Story of a Black Consciousness Martyr by Zikhona Valela

The JRB presents an excerpt from Zikhona Valela’s new book, Now You Know How Mapetla Died: The Story of a…

Academic

[The JRB Daily] 2022 Humanities and Social Sciences Awards winners announced—‘casting a celebratory light on those whose work often goes unnoticed’

Image: The 2022 HSS Awards winners. Back, from left: Aryan Kaganof, Natalia Molebatsi, Napjadi Letsoalo, Thulasizwe Simpson, Nthikeng Mohlele, Mandla…

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…

Book excerpts

‘Wouter Basson didn’t reply to my queries’—Imraan Coovadia chats to Jennifer Malec about his new book The Poisoners: On South Africa’s Toxic Past

Award-winning author Imraan Coovadia chats to The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec about the mechanisms of good and evil, emailing Wouter Basson, and his…

Academic

‘It is dangerous to be gay in Uganda’—Read the personal experience of Angel, a 32-year-old asylum seeker, from Seeking Sanctuary: Stories of Sexuality, Faith and Migration

The JRB presents an excerpt from John Marnell’s new book Seeking Sanctuary: Stories of Sexuality, Faith and Migration. Seeking Sanctuary:…

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…

Essays

[City Editor] In communion—Lidudumalingani gives deference to the worshippers who gather in the streets, parks and open lands of Johannesburg

On Sundays, in downtown Johannesburg, on the edge of Hillbrow, encroaching into Braamfontein, queues of worshippers fill out the streets,…

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…

Academic

‘The violators were in breach of the unwritten codes that make for proper new South Africanness’—Read ‘Foreign Familiars’, from Pumla Dineo Gqola’s new book Female Fear Factory

The JRB presents an excerpt from Female Fear Factory, the highly anticipated new book from Pumla Dineo Gqola. Female Fear…

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

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…

Academic

‘Miriam Tlali understood the complicated meanings of being “the first” for a black woman’—Read an excerpt from Pumla Dineo Gqola’s new book Miriam Tlali: Writing Freedom

The JRB presents an excerpt from Miriam Tlali: Writing Freedom, the latest book by Pumla Dineo Gqola, which brings together…

Academic

Johannesburg’s Place of Good Hope—Read an excerpt from Amakomiti: Grassroots Democracy in South African Shack Settlements by Trevor Ngwane

The JRB presents an excerpt from Trevor Ngwane’s forthcoming book Amakomiti: Grassroots Democracy in South African Shack Settlements.  Amakomiti: Grassroots…

International

‘What does it do to you to be the subject of someone else’s imaginative impoverishment?’—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Claudia Rankine’s new book Just Us

Claudia Rankine’s Just Us is perhaps the most profound meditation on race and violence to emerge in the first two…

Academic

Hiding in Plain Sight: Cold War Interventions into African Literature—Bhakti Shringarpure reviews Monica Popescu’s At Penpoint: African Literatures, Postcolonial Studies, and the Cold War

Monica Popescu’s At Penpoint: African Literatures, Postcolonial Studies, and the Cold War is a steadfast engagement with the cultural Cold…

Academic

‘Black women’s imaginative works are wreaths lain on the graves of ancestors so that they may not weep.’—Read an excerpt from Panashe Chigumadzi’s essay ‘Hearing the Silence’

The JRB presents an excerpt from a new essay by The JRB Contributing Editor Panashe Chigumadzi, from Surfacing: On Being…