Author Archives
A series of guest posts that open AiW's conversations.
For more info, bios and links about each of our AiW Guests, see their individual posts.
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Building an Archive – Voices from the Panel “Loving Womxn: Deliberate and Afraid of Nothing” at the 2018 Africa Writes Festival
AiW Guest: Katarzyna Kubin. It was the second day of the Africa Writes Festival, a week ahead of Black Pride. The heatwave beat on in London whilst, in the British Library, the animated festival crowd buzzed and mingled to and… Read More ›
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“Through the crooked jogs of history”: A Review of Peter Kimani’s Dance of the Jakaranda
AiW Guest Thando Njovane The year is 1963. The newly independent British colony of Kenia is renamed Kenya. Inside what used to be colonial officer Ian Edward McDonald’s “Monument of Love”, the Jakaranda Hotel, a young man, Rajan, is kissed… Read More ›
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Q&A: Akdogan Ali – Founder of game development studio Black Ring and developer of Throne of Gods, a Nigerian fighting game based on African mythology.
AiW Guest Tessa Pijnaker This third post in Africa in Words’ series about African superheroes is based on an interview with Akdogan Ali in April 2018. Ali (29) and his partner Umusu Samson Iruo (31) are the founders of the… Read More ›
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Books in Your Ears: On Literary Podcasts
This Guest post marks the launch of a new series on Africa in Words reviewing literary podcasts. This Sunday 1 July, Africa in Words is hosting a conversation at Africa Writes on one of the most exciting trends in African… Read More ›
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Flexible Forms and Publics: Moradewun Adejunmobi and Stacy Hardy on Small Magazines
AiW Guest Penny Cartwright A place for ‘extended curiosity, new adventures, critical thinking, daydreaming, socio-political involvement, partying and random perusal’: so Stacy Hardy, of South Africa’s Chimurenga, imagines the small magazine. Speaking as part of a closing keynote conversation hosted… Read More ›
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African superheroes in the 1970s and 1980s: a historical perspective
AiW Guest Tessa Pijnaker This is the second of a series of posts on African superheroes, guest edited by Tessa Pijnaker, PhD student in African Studies and Anthropology at the University of Birmingham. In this post Tessa takes a historical… Read More ›
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Archiving Small Magazines: AWA Digitisation and Exhibition in Montpelier
AiW Guest Aurélie Journo AiW note: This Guest post is part of a series of articles publishing on Africa in Words that come out of conversations between a new interdisciplinary network of researchers and literary producers examining the circulation and production… Read More ›
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Krotoa-Eva’s suite – a cape jazz poem in three movements, by Toni Stuart
AiW Guest Toni Stuart Africa in Words is thrilled to be able to share with you this audio-visual poem by Toni Stuart, an excerpt from her collection-in-progress Krotoa-Eva’s suite – a cape jazz poem in three movements. Toni Stuart is a… Read More ›
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African Superheroes Blog Series: Introduction – What is an African superhero?
By AiW Guest Tessa Pijnaker This is the first of a series of posts on African superheroes, guest edited by Tessa Pijnaker, PhD student in African Studies and Anthropology at the University of Birmingham. In this first post she introduces… Read More ›
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Finding Fictions, Forging a Feminist Fantastic: Reflections on ‘This F-Word’, the 5th edition of the Aké Arts and Book Festival (Abeokuta, 14-18 November, 2017)
By Matthew Lecznar Last November, I had the pleasure of attending the 5th edition of the Aké Arts and Book Festival. Organised by the Lagos-based Book Buzz Foundation, Aké is a five-day cultural extravaganza that takes place in and around… Read More ›
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Review: African Roads (‘L’Afrique des routes’) exhibition
AiW Guest Connor Pruss. The Quai Branly Museum (Musée du Quai Branly) in Paris currently features the exhibition “African Roads (‘L’Afrique des routes’)” from Jan. 31st – Nov. 12th, 2017. In the introduction, the curators propose to challenge the preconception… Read More ›
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‘A secret history of the nation’: Small Magazines at Writivism 2017
AiW Guest Nathan Suhr-Sytsma How does our sense of cultural and literary history shift if we start not from celebrity authors or landmark novels but from small magazines and the literary networks they foster? This question motivated the discussions of… Read More ›
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4 Years, 42 Honeycomb Grain Silos, 1 Remarkable Museum – Will Zeitz MOCAA take us into an Afrofuture?
AiW Guest: Katarzyna Kubin. September was a busy month of cultural events in South Africa. The Jozi Book Fair in Johannesburg took place over three days from 31st August to 3rd September. The Open Book Festival followed in Cape Town… Read More ›
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Event: African Writers, Readers and Historians Gather in London to Remember Makerere.
Africa in Words Guest: Robert Gates. SOAS African Literatures Conference: 55 years after the first Makerere African Writers Conference Saturday 28 October 2017 | 9.30am-7.30pm Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre | SOAS University of London bit.ly/SOASAfrLitsTix African writers-novelists, playwrights, poets and… Read More ›
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Finding Affiliations: Reading Communities, Literary Institutions & Small Magazines
AiW Guest Sarah Smit Earlier this year a group of academics, writers and literary producers came together in Cape Town for a workshop convened by Chris Ouma and Madhu Krishnan exploring ‘Small Magazines, Black Archives and Personal Histories’. This piece engages… Read More ›
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Q&A: The Importance of Writing and the Benefits of Travel – An interview with Iman Verjee at Open Book 2017.
AiW Guest: Katarzyna Kubin. Iman Verjee is a novelist living in Nairobi, Kenya with two novels published by the award-winning independent, Oneworld Publications: Who will Catch us as we Fall (2016) and In Between Dreams (2014). Both novels were promoted… Read More ›
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Voices from the Seventh Edition of the Open Book Festival, Cape Town, 2017.
AiW Guest: Katarzyna Kubin. One of the most exciting, world-class literary events, the Open Book Festival, takes place annually at the start of spring in Cape Town, South Africa, spear-headed by the independent bookshop, The Book Lounge, and the renowned Fugard… Read More ›
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Okey Ndibe’s orchestra
AiW Guest: Pelu Awofeso “I am a student of Chinua Achebe,” Okey Ndibe says near the end of his reading at University of Lagos’ Faculty of Arts last July. “But as a writer, my temperament is between [Wole] Soyinka, Achebe… Read More ›
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The global concerns of southern African photography
AiW Guest: Oyedepo Olukotun It is interesting to observe that a number of the 2017 summer exhibitions in London, UK, have coalesced around the storyline of Blackness. On the forefront with this storyline is Tate Modern’s Soul of a Nation:… Read More ›
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The Keiskamma Guernicas – (re)making experiences of HIV/AIDS in the Eastern Cape. 3 short films from ‘Guernica Remakings’ (3).
AiW Guest: Nicola Ashmore. AiW note: this post is the last continuing our AiW series about the project, book, and exhibition Guernica Remakings (University of Brighton, July 31 – August 23). Curated by our Guest Author Dr Nicola Ashmore,… Read More ›
