Non-fiction

‘Death walks everywhere with people’—Siphokazi Magadla reviews Mxolisi Mchunu’s Violence and Solace: The Natal Civil War in Late-Apartheid South Africa

Siphokazi Magadla reviews Violence and Solace: The Natal Civil War in Late-Apartheid South Africa by Mxolisi R Mchunu, a book…

Africa

‘What did it mean to suffocate history so as to preserve the order of the rich?’—Read an excerpt from Washington Bullets, the new book by Vijay Prashad

The JRB presents an excerpt from Vijay Prashad‘s Washington Bullets. Washington BulletsVijay PrashadInkani Books, 2022 ‘BRING DOWN MORE US AIRCRAFT’…

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

‘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:…

Book excerpts

[Sampler issue] ‘The last moments before the downfall of any dictator are all surprisingly similar’—Read an excerpt from The Dictatorship Syndrome by Alaa Al Aswany

The JRB presents an excerpt from The Dictatorship Syndrome by noted author Alaa Al Aswany. Alaa Aswany first and foremost…

Academic

[Sampler issue] ‘I would stare at this monstrous building trying to visualise my uncle falling to his death’—Read an excerpt from The Murder of Ahmed Timol by Imtiaz A Cajee

The JRB presents an excerpt from The Murder of Ahmed Timol: My Search for the Truth by Imtiaz A Cajee….

Awards

[The JRB Daily] ‘Globally inspiring’ NB Publishers wins AAP International Freedom to Publish Award for Jacques Pauw’s book The President’s Keepers

NB Publishers has been awarded the prestigious AAP International Freedom to Publish Award for Jacques Pauw’s book The President’s Keepers. The…

Academic

Remember the African Renaissance? Adekeye Adebajo reviews Building Blocks Towards an African Century: Essays in Honour of Thabo Mbeki, which shines a partial light on presidential ambition and influence

Celebrating Africa’s Philosopher-King—Adekeye Adebajo reviews Building Blocks Towards an African Century: Essays in Honour of Thabo Mbeki. Building Blocks Towards an…

Non-fiction

‘Ace Magashule’s rise reveals the weakness of the centre’—Imraan Coovadia reviews Pieter-Louis Myburgh’s Gangster State

Imraan Coovadia reviews Pieter-Louis Myburgh’s new book, Gangster State: Unravelling Ace Magashule’s Web of Capture. Pieter-Louis Myburgh Gangster State: Unravelling…

Academic

Dry like steel: A wrecking ball of a book—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Adam Habib’s Rebels and Rage: Reflecting on #FeesMustFall

Wamuwi Mbao reviews Rebels and Rage: Reflecting on #FeesMustFall by Adam Habib, finding it engrossing, but ultimately unconvincing. Rebels and Rage: Reflecting on #FeesMustFall…

Academic

[The JRB Daily] Commemorate Human Rights Day with an exclusive excerpt from Lie on Your Wounds: The Prison Correspondence of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe

Header image: Book cover (left); and Sobukwe, inside the grounds of Orlando Police Station, awaiting arrest, on the morning of 21…

Biography & Memoir

‘It was the only way we could escape our whiteness’—Read ‘Struggle Heroes’, an excerpt from Hugh Lewin’s memoir, Stones Against the Mirror

The JRB presents an excerpt from Stones Against the Mirror, the memoir of journalist, author and anti-apartheid activist Hugh Lewin,…

International

[Conversation Issue] To save the Earth, ‘we need to think beyond national democracy’—George Monbiot discusses his book Out of the Wreckage

British author and noted environmentalist George Monbiot took The JRB’s questions on his new book, Out of the Wreckage: A…

Awards

[The JRB Daily] ‘When they tried to ban the book, this book exploded’—Jacques Pauw’s The President’s Keepers wins Nielsen Booksellers Choice Award

Image: Jacques Pauw (right) with Stephen Long of Nielsen Book group The President’s Keepers by investigative journalist Jacques Pauw has…

Africa

[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…

Academic

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…

Current Affairs

[The JRB Daily] Thirty-eight Nobel laureates, including JM Coetzee, Kazuo Ishiguro and Wole Soyinka, write open letter to Turkey’s President Erdoğan over threats to freedom of expression

Thirty-eight Nobel laureates have written an open letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to draw his attention to damage…

Africa

Making space for women in South Africa’s political memory, or, the case of the non-intersection of Pixley ka Seme and Charlotte Maxeke Streets

Recently published biographies of Pixley ka Seme and Charlotte Maxeke reveal how women’s histories become insignificant back roads in the…

Africa

A guide for writing from the outside in: Sisonke Msimang on how Howard W French maps the road between the Africa of her childhood and the China of her imagination

  In his three books on Africa–China relations, Howard W French’s thinking is robust—sometimes forcefully so—and yet fundamentally respectful. A…