Author Archives

A series of Guest Author posts that open our conversations.

For more info, bios and links about each of our AiW Guests, scroll to the foot of their individual posts.

• Blogging the Caine Prize: Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s ‘The Whispering Trees’

  By Africa in Words Guest on 11 June , 2013 • ( 8 )

  

  AiW Guest Sylvia Gasana Hauntingly beautiful!  Those are the two first words that come to mind when describing Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s ‘The Whispering Trees’.  I’m always very excited to read a story that has a title that instantly transports you…. Read More ›

• ‘Deliver us from Evil’: A Review of Tope Folarin’s ‘Miracle’

  By Africa in Words Guest on 31 May , 2013 • ( 7 )

  

  AiW Guest Gbemisola Abiola. Tope Folarin’s Miracle depicts the prevailing belief in Christian supernaturalism, and the apparent promise of prosperity it holds for the African adherent, as the means of achieving success in the Diasporas. While the story is set in… Read More ›

• Fela Kuti and Bob Marley: two ports of the Black Atlantic

  By Africa in Words Guest on 12 May , 2013 • ( 3 )

  

  This post is part of the series Gilroy’s Black Atlantic. Click here to read the first post of the series, here to read the second and here to read the third AiW Guest Tiago C. Fernandes SIDE A: FELA KUTI Fela Anikulapo Kuti was born in… Read More ›

• Culture, politics and intellectual practice through Gilroy’s “The Black Atlantic”

  By Africa in Words Guest on 7 May , 2013 • ( 6 )

  

  This post is part of the series Gilroy’s Black Atlantic. Click here to read the first post of the series and here to read the second. The book “The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness” written by Paul Gilroy is extremely insightful to… Read More ›

• Gilroy’s Black Atlantic: Samba, Jazz and Sambajazz in Brazil and the Black Atlantic.

  By Africa in Words Guest on 28 April , 2013 • ( 7 )

  

  This post is part of the series Gilroy’s Black Atlantic. Click here to read the first post of the series and here to read the third. AiW Guest Gabriel Improta I’m a musician and a social scientist from Rio de… Read More ›

• Travels in Noo Saro-Wiwa’s Transwonderland

  By Africa in Words Guest on 12 April , 2013 • ( 2 )

  

  AiW Guest Steve Haines Working in the world of ‘international development’ I’m easily tempted to measure a country by metrics and indices.  What interests me is the percentage of the population with access to safe drinking water, the primary school… Read More ›

• The Book in Africa: A Day Symposium

  By Africa in Words Guest on 27 March , 2013 • ( 1 )

  

  AiW Guest Ruth Bush This lively one day event took place in London at Senate House on 20 October 2012, was led by Dr Caroline Davis (Oxford Brookes) and brought together a number of researchers working in the broad area of… Read More ›

• Notes from the Kwani? Literary Festival

  By Africa in Words Guest on 21 March , 2013 • ( 0 )

  

  AiW Guest Dzekashu MacViban In December 2012, I travelled to Nairobi for the 2012 Kwani? Litfest as part of the Goethe Institut’s pan-African exchange programme ‘Moving Africa’. Of the various panels and readings I attended four stood out: our Moving… Read More ›

• Review: 100% Jacob Zuma

  By Africa in Words Guest on 14 March , 2013 • ( 3 )

  

  AiW Guest Emily Hogg and Benjamin Poore. In 2006 The New York Times reported that Jacob Zuma’s defence during his trial for rape was rooted in claims he made about the traditions and customs of Zulu culture. The Times wrote: “His… Read More ›

• CFP: 4th Annual African Languages in the Disciplines Conference (ALD), Harvard University.

  By Africa in Words Guest on 15 February , 2013 • ( 2 )

  AiW Guest Stephanie Bosch Santana. CALL FOR PAPERS  The African Language Program in the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University presents the 4th Annual African Languages in the Disciplines Conference (ALD)  Conference date: April 25, 2013 Harvard University, Cambridge,… Read More ›

• ASAUK12: the legacy

  By Africa in Words Guest on 23 January , 2013 • ( 1 )

  

  AiW guest Helen Cousins. 2012 was the year of ‘legacy’ – a notion popularised, of course, by the London 2012 Olympics. Four months on from the African Studies Association UK conference, I want to reflect on my personal ‘legacy’ from… Read More ›

• From Roswell to Rosebank – South African SF and Jungle Jim

  By Africa in Words Guest on 6 December , 2012 • ( 2 )

  

  AiW Guest Graham Riach. On the front cover of issue 16 of Jungle Jim,a starry sky hangs low over two Zulu tribesmen, assegais held high behind their shields. Looming towards them is a muscle-bound giant with an insectoid robotic head,… Read More ›

• ‘Without warning, everything became possible’: pulp fiction and the rise of Jungle Jim

  By Africa in Words Guest on 5 December , 2012 • ( 12 )

  AiW Guest Alexander Howard.  1. As the author and editor Jenna Bass points out in the first instalment of her recent interview with Katie Reid of Africa in Words, the bi-monthly fiction magazine Jungle Jim arose out of a shared desire… Read More ›

• Jim in the Urban Jungle – South African print culture and Jungle Jim

  By Africa in Words Guest on 4 December , 2012 • ( 1 )

  

  AiW Guest Ed Charlton.  As an intervention into the formal space of South African print culture, Jungle Jim is certainly daring and distinctive. If not an entirely unique mode of literary production, its pulp ’zine format is, nonetheless, a marked… Read More ›

• African Book Festival, London, 26th-27th October 2012

  By Africa in Words Guest on 27 November , 2012 • ( 0 )

  

  AiW Guest Kate Nkanza. When I first heard about the African Book Festival, I was so excited that I paid for my pass for two days straight away.

• Africa Express, London, September 8th 2012

  By Africa in Words Guest on 28 September , 2012 • ( 5 )

  

  AiW Guest Anthony Leaker. http://www.africaexpress.co.uk/ For those of you who can’t be bothered to read a long post here’s the conclusion: it was fantastic; you missed out; a genuinely once in a lifetime experience of incredible musicians and energised, inspiring, and… Read More ›