While 12 Rules for Life was a snapshot of an intellectual moment, however paltry, Beyond Order is the literary equivalent…
Monica Popescu’s At Penpoint: African Literatures, Postcolonial Studies, and the Cold War is a steadfast engagement with the cultural Cold…
Wamuwi Mbao reviews Rešoketšwe Manenzhe’s novel Scatterlings, winner of the 2020 Dinaane Debut Fiction Award. ScatterlingsRešoketšwe ManenzheJacana Media, 2020 There…
In The Rise of the African Novel, Mukoma Wa Ngugi traces the way African literature has been a space to…
Whether we have learnt from the story of Dr Abdullah Abdurahman remains to be seen, writes Stephen Langtry. Martin Plaut’s…
In The Lie of 1652, Patric Tariq Mellet fills in the ‘before’ that was of little interest to those invested…
The First Woman can be read as Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s answer to people who like to defend patriarchal power by…
Colin Grant’s Homecoming: Voices of the Windrush Generation is an important and valuable text that has captured the voices that…
Wamuwi Mbao reviews Avni Doshi’s Booker Prize-shortlisted novel Burnt Sugar. Burnt SugarAvni DoshiPenguin, 2020 The rather selfish belief that one’s…
Europatriarchy takes centre stage in Minna Salami’s elegant book of essays Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone, writes…
Rustum Kozain reviews In Praise of Hotel Rooms, the fifth collection of poetry by Fiona Zerbst, calling it ‘a fine…
Wamuwi Mbao reviews Irenosen Okojie’s Nudibranch, the ‘immersively deranged’ collection containing her 2020 Caine Prize-winning story. Nudibranch Irenosen OkojieLittle, Brown,…
The JRB Francophone and Contributing Editor Efemia Chela travels to Mozambique with Mia Couto’s novel Confessions of a Lioness. Confessions…
Arja Salafranca reviews Mark Gevisser’s new book The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers. The Pink Line: Journeys…
Imani Perry’s Breathe is a memoir committed to the radical hope that sees Black boys as more than problems to…
Mary Carman reviews Debating African Philosophy, a new collection of essays that originated during student protests and demands for the…
There are no easy answers in JM Coetzee’s new novel The Death of Jesus, but the exploration is part of…
Toni Giselle Stuart reviews Gabeba Baderoon’s poetry collection The History of Intimacy, which won the 2019 University of Johannesburg Main…
Vonani Bila considers KwaNobuhle Overcast, the latest book of poetry from Ayanda Billie, who won a South African Literary Award…
The Kenyan novel is not dead, writes Carey Baraka, as long as Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor keeps writing. 1. On June…
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s new book Manchester Happened reflects the here-and-there double consciousness of living between Uganda and England, writes Wamuwi…
In Born Freeloaders, Phumlani Pikoli seeks to provide a meditation on how empire is constructed through language. But the language…
This December marked the The JRB’s thirty-second issue, the final issue of our third volume. With the new year—but not…
Between Baldwin, the world and the Old South—Wamuwi Mbao reviews The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The Water DancerTa-Nehisi CoatesHamish…
Richard Poplak reviews The Night Trains by Charles van Onselen, a book grounded in the hard work of scouring the…
Zadie Smith, the accomplished, experimental New Yorker—The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec reviews Grand Union. Grand UnionZadie SmithHamish Hamilton, 2019 Read an…
The JRB Francophone and Contributing Editor Efemia Chela travels to Ethiopia with the living archive of Maaza Mengiste’s novel, The Shadow King. The…
Lidudumalingani reviews Everything is a Deathly Flower by Maneo Mohale, finding it to be a succession of powerful moments. Everything…
In Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, Jia Tolentino presents her cosmopolitan obsessions with piercing insight and authority, writes Khanya Mtshali. Trick…
The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec reviews Lauren Wilkinson’s debut novel American Spy, a thriller that exposes the human drama that plays out…
With prose that sparkles and pops, Rémy Ngamije’s The Eternal Audience of One is a millennial novel that intricately traces…
Fantastic Returns and Where to Find Them—The JRB Francophone and Contributing Editor Efemia Chela travels to Liberia with Wayétu Moore’s…
Moshibudi Motimele reflects on the publication of Our Words, Our Worlds: Writing on Black South African Women Poets, 2000–2018, a…
On Paulin Hountondji’s Universalist philosophy—Sanya Osha reviews Paulin Hountondji: African Philosophy as Critical Humanism, by Franziska Dubgen and Stefan Skupien….
The Nickel Boys is a powerfully controlled novel in which the main character learns that there are no rules by…
The Troubled Times of Magrieta Prinsloo by Ingrid Winterbach offers us one of the most chilling and fearless portraits of…
In Beyond Babylon, by Igiaba Scego, migrants come to rebuild their lives in the midst of ruins, writes Francophone and…
In Travellers, Helon Habila delivers a riveting novel that unfolds as a tribute to displaced people and stands as a…
A novel of feminist radicalism, readable in the best sense of the word—Wamuwi Mbao reviews Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn, who will be…
A significant first step in documenting the life writing of black Zimbabwean women—The JRB Contributing Editor Panashe Chigumadzi reviews Township Girls:…
