[Temporary Sojourner] All About Eve: Efemia Chela reviews Ananda Devi’s Eve Out of Her Ruins
Efemia Chela travels to the dirty and dangerous streets of Mauritius with Ananda Devi’s Eve Out of Her Ruins in…
Category: Reviews
Disrupting the solipsism of the personal photograph: Wamuwi Mbao reviews Teju Cole’s new book, Blind Spot
How streaked we are by what we see: Teju Cole is at his engrossing best in his new book, Blind…
Brilliant, hilarious, eerily contemporary: Mbali Sikakana reflects on Fran Ross’s forgotten black feminist novel Oreo
Fran Ross’s wildly funny race satire, Oreo, was originally published in 1974, and instantly forgotten. Mbali Sikakana surveys the novel’s…
[Temporary Sojourner] False memories and true love in Sierra Leone: Efemia Chela reads Aminatta Forna’s The Memory of Love
The perfect tragic vision of love and collective violence: Francophone & Contributing Editor Efemia Chela travels to Sierra Leone by reading Aminatta…
A rollicking tale: Alex Lichtenstein reviews Charles van Onselen’s new book The Cowboy Capitalist: John Hays Hammond, the American West and the Jameson Raid
Charles van Onselen’s new book offers a gripping narrative, a witty voice dripping with matchless sarcasm, and unparalleled knowledge of…
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…
‘A writer utterly in control of her medium’: Wamuwi Mbao reviews Scaachi Koul’s glittering collection of essays, One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter
In her debut collection of essays, One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, Scaachi Koul delivers…
Salman Rushdie’s finest writing in many years: CA Davids reviews The Golden House
Despite a tone of hopelessness, Salman Rushdie’s latest novel The Golden House carries majesty, from its prose to its world-weary gaze….
[The JRB Daily] English Academy of Southern Africa Award winners announced
The winners of the English Academy of Southern Africa Awards for writing have been announced. Geoffrey Haresnape will receive the Thomas…
The Johannesburg Review of Books Vol. 1, Issue 4 (August 2017)
The fourth issue of The Johannesburg Review of Books has arrived—and not a moment too soon, in our humble opinion….
Mak Manaka: One horny m’fcker – Bongani Madondo reviews Flowers of a Broken Smile
Take me to the memory of my grandmother’s hands I want to bathe in her voice and remember how…
‘The place you return to is always slightly different’: Imraan Coovadia reviews Haruki Murakami’s new book, Men Without Women
Men Without Women Haruki Murakami Harvill Secker, 2017 In Haruki Murakami’s collection of seven stories, Men without Women, the characters…
A shared secondhand experience of South Africa: Mbali Sikakana reviews Zinzi Clemmons’s What We Lose
What We Lose Zinzi Clemmons Fourth Estate, 2017 Memory itself is an internal rumour —George Santayana But most of…
A love story for modern Africa: Richard Ali reviews Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani
Dance of the Jakaranda Peter Kimani Akashic Books, 2017 Two Europeans exchange confidences on a train travelling through the Great Rift…
‘What is the acceptable amount of blood for good literature?’ Panashe Chigumadzi reviews Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness Arundhati Roy Hamish Hamilton/Penguin Random House, 2017 Algebra. For the last twenty years Arundhati Roy…
A steady vigil over the slow death of the anti-apartheid dream: Rustum Kozain reviews Kelwyn Sole’s latest poetry collection, Walking, Falling
Kelwyn Sole Walking, Falling Deep South, 2017 Read: Four Poems by Kelwyn Sole Walking, Falling extends Kelwyn Sole’s…
‘A dazzling new voice’: Olufunke Ogundimu reviews Lesley Nneka Arimah’s What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky
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,…
Eking out a deeper truth on the rough seas of historical fiction: Wamuwi Mbao reviews Fred Khumalo’s Dancing the Death Drill
Dancing the Death Drill Fred Khumalo Umuzi, 2017 The historical novel presents rough seas for a writer. Attaching a novel…
Step on the Bassline: Bongani Madondo unlocks a torrent of Joburg memories
I don’t believe any biographer can be objective. —Mark Gevisser … I saw a sign over a door in café…
Caught in the surreal postcolonial swirl: Wamuwi Mbao reviews Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou
Black Moses Alain Mabanckou Serpent’s Tail 2017 (Man Booker International Prize finalist) A young man visits a doctor in the…
We are not dogs! We must get organised: Percy Zvomuya reviews The Beggars’ Strike by Aminata Sow Fall
Percy Zvomuya reviews The Beggars’ Strike, by Senegalese author Aminata Sow Fall, first published in English in 1981. The Beggars’…
[Temporary Sojourner] How little has changed in thirty-nine years: Efemia Chela reads Dambudzo Marechera’s The House of Hunger
The House of Hunger Dambudzo Marechera First published Pantheon Books 1978; this edition Heinemann African Writers Series 2009 We knew…
Portrait of the poet as a young genius: Bongani Madondo reviews Koleka Putuma’s Collective Amnesia
There is an ‘undecidable conflict’ between the poet’s desire to sing an alternative world and, as Grossman puts it, the…
The anthology we have been waiting for: Panashe Chigumadzi reviews Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? by Kathleen Collins
Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? Kathleen Collins Granta 2017 Black women as you have never seen them before, on screen…
All too exhilarating: Wamuwi Mbao reviews Naomi Alderman’s Baileys Prize-shortlisted sci-fi novel The Power
Update: Naomi Alderman has since been announced as the winner of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction The Power Naomi…
The limits of counterfactual fiction: Percy Zvomuya reviews Bertène Juminer’s Bozambo’s Revenge and Michel Houellebecq’s Submission
La Revanche de Bozambo / Bozambo’s Revenge Bertène Juminer Présence Africaine, 1968 (French ed.)/Three Continents Press, 1968 (English ed.) Submission…
A knockout crime debut from Lagos: Ben Williams reviews Leye Adenle’s Easy Motion Tourist
Easy Motion Tourist Leye Adenle Cassava Republic Press/Pan Macmillan South Africa 2016 1. On September 21st 2015, a Monday, a…
All you need is luck: Jennifer Malec reviews Zadie Smith’s Swing Time and Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers
Swing Time Zadie Smith Penguin Books 2016 Behold the Dreamers Imbolo Mbue HarperCollins 2017 1. Zadie Smith’s new novel, Swing…
Spectacular collisions of perspectives in Grace A Musila’s A Death Retold in Truth and Rumour: Kenya, Britain and the Julie Ward Murder
A Death Retold in Truth and Rumour: Kenya, Britain and the Julie Ward Murder Grace A Musila James Currey 2015…
Sailing with The Argonauts: A personal history of Christmas, queerness and Maggie Nelson by Efemia Chela
The Argonauts Maggie Nelson Graywolf Press 2016 Actually, no one is inspired by anyone except his own self and his…
Facing up to a techno-feudal world: Richard Poplak reviews Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future Martin Ford Oneworld 2016 The robots are coming….