[The JRB Daily] Top 10 of 2019—A look back at our most popular articles of the year
This December marked the The JRB’s thirty-second issue, the final issue of our third volume. With the new year—but not…
Category: Reviews
A depth charge aimed at the submerged wreckage of slavery—Wamuwi Mbao reviews The Water Dancer, the debut novel by acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates
Between Baldwin, the world and the Old South—Wamuwi Mbao reviews The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The Water DancerTa-Nehisi CoatesHamish…
Board the Eastern Main Line and go to work in Hell—Richard Poplak reviews The Night Trains, Charles van Onselen’s finest book yet
Richard Poplak reviews The Night Trains by Charles van Onselen, a book grounded in the hard work of scouring the…
Fragments, explorations and variations—Jennifer Malec reviews Zadie Smith’s debut collection of short stories, Grand Union, her most American book to date
Zadie Smith, the accomplished, experimental New Yorker—The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec reviews Grand Union. Grand UnionZadie SmithHamish Hamilton, 2019 Read an…
[Temporary Sojourner] Thrill to the layered, secret nature of it—Efemia Chela reviews Maaza Mengiste’s new novel, The Shadow King
The JRB Francophone and Contributing Editor Efemia Chela travels to Ethiopia with the living archive of Maaza Mengiste’s novel, The Shadow King. The…
A perfectly shaped raging fire of language and emotion—Lidudumalingani reviews Everything is a Deathly Flower, the debut poetry collection by Maneo Mohale
Lidudumalingani reviews Everything is a Deathly Flower by Maneo Mohale, finding it to be a succession of powerful moments. Everything…
Jia Tolentino is a moral voice for the secular world—Khanya Mtshali reviews Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, a collection of essays that explores how we survive our late-capitalist hellscape
In Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, Jia Tolentino presents her cosmopolitan obsessions with piercing insight and authority, writes Khanya Mtshali. Trick…
American Spy reimagines the American spy, bringing gender and race into the war room—Jennifer Malec reviews Lauren Wilkinson’s new Cold War thriller
The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec reviews Lauren Wilkinson’s debut novel American Spy, a thriller that exposes the human drama that plays out…
Southern Africa throws its hat into the millennial fiction ring—Mphuthumi Ntabeni reviews The Eternal Audience of One, the debut novel by Rwandan–Namibian author Rémy Ngamije
With prose that sparkles and pops, Rémy Ngamije’s The Eternal Audience of One is a millennial novel that intricately traces…
[Temporary Sojourner] Liberia, the original African escapist fantasy—Efemia Chela reviews Wayétu Moore’s sweeping and poetic debut novel She Would Be King
Fantastic Returns and Where to Find Them—The JRB Francophone and Contributing Editor Efemia Chela travels to Liberia with Wayétu Moore’s…
Our Words, Our Worlds: The work of Black women poets as an act of poetic revolt, by Moshibudi Motimele
Moshibudi Motimele reflects on the publication of Our Words, Our Worlds: Writing on Black South African Women Poets, 2000–2018, a…
The quest to establish a world-class African philosophical tradition—Sanya Osha reviews Paulin Hountondji: African Philosophy as Critical Humanism
On Paulin Hountondji’s Universalist philosophy—Sanya Osha reviews Paulin Hountondji: African Philosophy as Critical Humanism, by Franziska Dubgen and Stefan Skupien….
Refusing the tyranny of American beauty—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Colson Whitehead’s shocking and unsettling new novel The Nickel Boys
The Nickel Boys is a powerfully controlled novel in which the main character learns that there are no rules by…
‘Among the most gifted writers currently at work’—Patrick Flanery reviews The Troubled Times of Magrieta Prinsloo by Ingrid Winterbach
The Troubled Times of Magrieta Prinsloo by Ingrid Winterbach offers us one of the most chilling and fearless portraits of…
‘Not your traditional immigrant novel’—Efemia Chela reviews Beyond Babylon, the newly translated English debut by Somali–Italian author Igiaba Scego
In Beyond Babylon, by Igiaba Scego, migrants come to rebuild their lives in the midst of ruins, writes Francophone and…
‘A powerful commentary on displacement, and a stark condemnation of the powers that be’—Outlwile Tsipane reviews Helon Habila’s new novel, Travellers
In Travellers, Helon Habila delivers a riveting novel that unfolds as a tribute to displaced people and stands as a…
To be human is to be capable of great love and truly awful behaviour—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
A novel of feminist radicalism, readable in the best sense of the word—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn, who will be…
Bearing witness to unusual childhoods of privilege under oppression—Panashe Chigumadzi reviews Township Girls: The Cross-Over Generation
A significant first step in documenting the life writing of black Zimbabwean women—The JRB Contributing Editor Panashe Chigumadzi reviews Township Girls:…
An exhilarating elegy for the slaves and storytellers of old—Lara Buxbaum reviews Patrick Chamoiseau’s wildly inventive novel The Old Slave and the Mastiff
Tracing the memory of bones, ‘a long thread of words that attempted to fulfil the universe’—Lara Buxbaum reviews The Old…
Writing queerness as mythology—Zanta Nkumane reviews Ocean Vuong’s debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Zanta Nkumane reviews Ocean Vuong’s devastatingly beautiful debut On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, a novel about living in the margins,…
‘We have entered the uncanny valley of literary realism’—Simon van Schalkwyk reviews Ian McEwan’s new novel Machines Like Me
In Machines Like Me, Ian McEwan appears to have offered us an alternative history that leads to the same dispiriting…
Wider than the Black Atlantic—Bongani Madondo listens in on Kwame Brathwaite’s visual sounds of Blackness, from the photo book Black Is Beautiful
Contributing Editor Bongani Madondo unmoors Kwame Brathwaite’s Black Is Beautiful from mono-dimensional notions of the Black Atlantic into a New African Globalism of…
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…
‘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…
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…
A book written by a great writer who wants to be everything to everyone—Tymon Smith reviews Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a frustrating could’ve, would’ve, should’ve affair, although it may yet prove to be the beginning…
Scenes from a Marriage for the Beyhive generation—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Ordinary People by Diana Evans
Wamuwi Mbao reviews Diana Evans’s novel Ordinary People, which has been longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Women’s Prize for Fiction….
‘A literary con’—Hedley Twidle rereads Familiarity is the Kingdom of the Lost by Dugmore Boetie, the joker in the pack of Sophiatown-era life writing
In this excerpt from his forthcoming book on non-fiction in South African literature, Experiments with Truth, Hedley Twidle revisits Dugmore…
‘Baldwin the symbol of black transgression and global black anger is simply peerless’—Bongani Madondo on If Beale Street Could Talk, the book and Oscar-winning film
James Baldwin’s novel of half a century ago, If Beale Street Could Talk, now reissued by Penguin Random House, was…
Illuminating a mighty poet and a total artist—Rustum Kozain reviews Dread Poetry and Freedom: Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Unfinished Revolution
The JRB Poetry Editor Rustum Kozain reviews David Austin’s new book Dread Poetry and Freedom: Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Unfinished Revolution, finding…
Showcasing African literature’s contribution to decolonisation—Lebohang Mojapelo reviews Ngũgĩ: Reflections on His Life of Writing
Lebohang Mojapelo reviews Ngũgĩ: Reflections on His Life of Writing, a collection of essays that reflects on the life and work of Ngũgĩ…
‘There is no comfort to be had in fiction. Our history is too raw for that’—Jacob Dlamini reviews Barry Gilder’s ‘brilliant, haunting’ novel The List
The List, the debut novel by former anti-apartheid activist and uMkhonto weSizwe member Barry Gilder, is a meditation about betrayal, faith,…
‘A story that skips along breezily, even as the body count rises’—Jennifer Malec reviews My Sister, the Serial Killer, the debut novel by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Contrary to what the title and pulpy cover seem to suggest, My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite is…
We told her she was Nina Simone—Bongani Madondo reviews She Begat This: 20 Years of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by Joan Morgan
As Bongani Madondo experienced tinges of nostalgia occasioned by the twentieth anniversary of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, HipHop Feminist…
[Temporary Sojourner] Efemia Chela reads Trifonia Melibea Obono’s La Bastarda, the first novel by an Equatoguinean woman to be translated into English
In La Bastarda we find a revolutionary piece of literature, where a young girl isn’t saved by her long-lost father,…
Transforming the real world into something strange—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Sally Rooney’s unusual and evanescent novel Normal People
Sally Rooney reshapes our understanding of the ordinary in a manner that invites us to imagine better ways of being,…
A seminal catalyst of African speculative fiction—Thando Njovane shares three thoughts on Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death
Constructed around a feminist, though dystopian, future, Nnedi Okorafor’s novel Who Fears Death—now reissued some eight years after its first…
What would happen if the super-rich spent all their money? Jennifer Malec reviews Patrick deWitt’s new novel, French Exit
It’s a strange time to be writing a comedy of manners about moneyed New Yorkers, but Patrick deWitt’s French Exit…
Bullets and carnage, infidelity and revenge in occupied Kashmir—Azad Essa reviews Feroz Rather’s The Night of Broken Glass
In his debut work of fiction, The Night of Broken Glass, Feroz Rather masterfully captures the peculiar, punctured lives of…
The rediscovery of the ordinary does not preclude the extraordinary—Jennifer Malec reviews Esi Edugyan’s novel Washington Black
The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec reviews Esi Edugyan’s Man Booker Prize-shortlisted novel, Washington Black. Washington Black Esi Edugyan Serpent’s Tail, 2018 Esi…