By recentering the narrative on Durban and Natal, rather than Johannesburg and the Transvaal, Jon Soske modifies the established account…
The JRB is proud to present an excerpt from Africa’s Cause Must Triumph: The Collected Writings of AP Mda. Africa’s Cause…
This July marks the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of Chinua Achebe’s seminal novel Things Fall Apart. Lebohang Mojapelo reviews…
Colson Whitehead’s The Colossus of New York, reissued fourteen years after its first publication, endures in the quality of its writing and…
The JRB Francophone and Contributing Editor Efemia Chela reviews Not One Day, Anne Garréta’s memoir and the second of her books to be…
‘Johannesburg is a fragmented city. It is not a place of smoothly integrated parts. And it has a name that…
‘I dedicate this win to my mother and my father, who never went to school. It just shows what…
The JRB City Editor Niq Mhlongo reviews Clinton Chauke’s debut book, Born in Chains: The Diary of an Angry ‘Born Free’. Born…
Pwaangulongii Dauod has won the R25 000 Gerald Kraak Award, which honours African writing and photography that ‘provokes thought on the…
The shortlists for this year’s Sunday Times Literary Awards have been announced! The Alan Paton Award for Non-fiction and the…
Ntombizikhona Valela considers two very different books, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s 491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69 and Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob’s…
Adekeye Adebajo reviews Woman in the Wings by Carien du Plessis, offering concluding reflections on Agenda 2063, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma’s dubious…
Zadie Smith’s new collection of essays, Feel Free, is a too-rare pleasure, writes The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec. Not many…
Panashe Chigumadzi’s new book, These Bones Will Rise Again, will be out from United Kingdom-based independent publisher The Indigo Press in June….
Image: Bob Marley performing at the Zimbabwe Independence celebration, Rufaro Stadium, Harare, 18 April 1980 The new issue of Chimurenga’s…
The JRB’s Academic Editor Simon van Schalkwyk spoke to UK academic, historian and philosopher Paul Gilroy, who was in Johannesburg…
Richard Poplak reviews 12 Rules For Life by Jordan B Peterson, ‘the most influential public intellectual in the Western world…
Nomavenda Mathiane’s Eyes in the Night: An Untold Zulu Story illuminates the times, spaces and voices in-between, writes The JRB…
Achille Mbembe’s vision is a guide to the revolution that stands on the other side of revolution, writes Imraan Coovadia. Critique…
Comment sauver son enfant d’une mort certaine ? Faut-il, comme le croit le père de l’auteur, faire confiance à l’école…
The 2018 Sunday Times Literary Awards longlists have been announced! The awards celebrate ‘the best of South African non-fiction and…
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has died in Johannesburg at the age of eighty-one. Read an excerpt from her prison journal, published in 2013,…
The Land is Ours is Tembeka Ngcukaitobi’s first book, and it must not be his last, writes Perfect Hlongwane. The…
The Monk of Mokha’s easygoing optimism glides over the prejudices and hatred that underdog minorities face in the United States,…
Homesoil in My Blood: A Trilogy Keorapetse Kgositsile Xarra Books, 2018 Exclusive to The JRB, we present author Mandla Langa’s…
Tiah Beautement chats to Philippa Namutebi Kabali-Kagwa about her poetry and prose memoir, Flame and Song, which traverses Uganda, Addis…
The JRB presents an excerpt from Ramaphosa: The Man Who Would Be King by Ray Hartley. Ramaphosa: The Man Who…
TO Molefe believes Raoul Peck should have claimed I Am Not Your Negro as a new, original work, not as James…
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…
Hugh Ramapolo Masekela died in Johannesburg today, at the age of seventy-eight, after a long battle with prostate cancer. The…
As part of our January Conversation Issue, The JRB published an essay titled ‘Kanga and Khwezi: Kwezilomso Mbandazayo challenges the…
Kwezilomso Mbandazayo, known as the womxn who loaned her name to Khwezi, Jacob Zuma’s rape accuser, offers a personal reflection…
David van Schoor responds to Sarah Ruden’s letter, published in our December issue, addressing Van Schoor’s review of her translation…
The second annual Abantu Book Festival kicked off in Soweto today, and festival director Thando Mgqolozana emphasised the event’s focus…
Sarah Ruden responds to David van Schoor’s review of her translation of Augustine’s Confessions, ‘Translation as nuclear arms race’, published in the November…
The JRB cover image this week comes from Johannesburg. Made in China, the ninth book of Fourthwall Books’s acclaimed series Wake Up,…
The winners of the 2017 South African Literary Awards (SALAs) have been announced. The SALAs are awarded annually by the…
Jacques Pauw’s new book The President’s Keepers shows that children will have it harder tomorrow and that the children of South…
