Second-wave feminism, mansplained: Diane Awerbuck finds much to disappoint in Stephen and Owen King’s Sleeping Beauties. Sleeping Beauties Stephen King…
Fear of a black planet, rather than ‘economic anxiety’, gnaws at the West’s hallowed liberal democratic principles, writes Lebohang Mojapelo….
The JRB’s Editor takes a look back at 2017 and picks out the single work that left the biggest impression….
Jacques Pauw’s new book The President’s Keepers shows that children will have it harder tomorrow and that the children of South…
Like watching JM Coetzee solve a series of Rubik’s cubes, only more entertaining: Wamuwi Mbao reviews Late Essays: 2006–2017. Late Essays: 2006–2017…
Efemia Chela reviews Marie NDiaye’s newly translated masterpiece My Heart Hemmed In, a mixture of literary fiction, psychological thriller and…
David van Schoor reviews Sarah Ruden’s bold new translation of Augustine’s Confessions. Confessions Sarah Ruden Modern Library, 2017 1. Sine…
Efemia Chela travels to the dirty and dangerous streets of Mauritius with Ananda Devi’s Eve Out of Her Ruins in…
How streaked we are by what we see: Teju Cole is at his engrossing best in his new book, Blind…
Fran Ross’s wildly funny race satire, Oreo, was originally published in 1974, and instantly forgotten. Mbali Sikakana surveys the novel’s…
The perfect tragic vision of love and collective violence: Francophone & Contributing Editor Efemia Chela travels to Sierra Leone by reading Aminatta…
Charles van Onselen’s new book offers a gripping narrative, a witty voice dripping with matchless sarcasm, and unparalleled knowledge of…
In his three books on Africa–China relations, Howard W French’s thinking is robust—sometimes forcefully so—and yet fundamentally respectful. A…
In her debut collection of essays, One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, Scaachi Koul delivers…
Despite a tone of hopelessness, Salman Rushdie’s latest novel The Golden House carries majesty, from its prose to its world-weary gaze….
The winners of the English Academy of Southern Africa Awards for writing have been announced. Geoffrey Haresnape will receive the Thomas…
The fourth issue of The Johannesburg Review of Books has arrived—and not a moment too soon, in our humble opinion….
Take me to the memory of my grandmother’s hands I want to bathe in her voice and remember how…
Men Without Women Haruki Murakami Harvill Secker, 2017 In Haruki Murakami’s collection of seven stories, Men without Women, the characters…
What We Lose Zinzi Clemmons Fourth Estate, 2017 Memory itself is an internal rumour —George Santayana But most of…
Dance of the Jakaranda Peter Kimani Akashic Books, 2017 Two Europeans exchange confidences on a train travelling through the Great Rift…
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness Arundhati Roy Hamish Hamilton/Penguin Random House, 2017 Algebra. For the last twenty years Arundhati Roy…
Kelwyn Sole Walking, Falling Deep South, 2017 Read: Four Poems by Kelwyn Sole Walking, Falling extends Kelwyn Sole’s…
What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky Lesley Nneka Arimah Riverhead Books, 2017 Lesley Nneka Arimah’s debut collection of short stories,…
Dancing the Death Drill Fred Khumalo Umuzi, 2017 The historical novel presents rough seas for a writer. Attaching a novel…
I don’t believe any biographer can be objective. —Mark Gevisser … I saw a sign over a door in café…
Black Moses Alain Mabanckou Serpent’s Tail 2017 (Man Booker International Prize finalist) A young man visits a doctor in the…
Percy Zvomuya reviews The Beggars’ Strike, by Senegalese author Aminata Sow Fall, first published in English in 1981. The Beggars’…
The House of Hunger Dambudzo Marechera First published Pantheon Books 1978; this edition Heinemann African Writers Series 2009 We knew…
There is an ‘undecidable conflict’ between the poet’s desire to sing an alternative world and, as Grossman puts it, the…
Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? Kathleen Collins Granta 2017 Black women as you have never seen them before, on screen…
Update: Naomi Alderman has since been announced as the winner of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction The Power Naomi…
La Revanche de Bozambo / Bozambo’s Revenge Bertène Juminer Présence Africaine, 1968 (French ed.)/Three Continents Press, 1968 (English ed.) Submission…
Easy Motion Tourist Leye Adenle Cassava Republic Press/Pan Macmillan South Africa 2016 1. On September 21st 2015, a Monday, a…
Swing Time Zadie Smith Penguin Books 2016 Behold the Dreamers Imbolo Mbue HarperCollins 2017 1. Zadie Smith’s new novel, Swing…
A Death Retold in Truth and Rumour: Kenya, Britain and the Julie Ward Murder Grace A Musila James Currey 2015…
The Argonauts Maggie Nelson Graywolf Press 2016 Actually, no one is inspired by anyone except his own self and his…
Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future Martin Ford Oneworld 2016 The robots are coming….
