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 ›
Reviews – Events
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 ›
“German Colonialism: Fragments Past and Present” at The Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, 14 October 2016 to 14 May 2017
AiW Author: Katarzyna Kubin “In the late 19th and early 20th century, the German Empire was one of the largest European colonial powers,” states the Foreword to the catalogue for the Deutsches Historisches Museum’s exhibit on German colonial history. Unlike… Read More ›
After a long break, Nigerian Theatre picks up
AiW Guest: Pelu Awofeso Actor and performance coach Toyin Oshinaike is teaching 80 thespians in an actors’ workshop at the Lagos Theatre Festival (28 Feb-5 March); all on their feet and attentive, they form a large rectangular ring around him…. Read More ›
Innovative exhibition puts African cities on the fashion map
AiW Guest: Harriet Hughes Fashion Cities Africa, the first major UK exhibition dedicated to presenting contemporary African Fashion design, opened at Brighton museum in April 2016. The aim of the exhibition is to present the fashion cultures of four African… Read More ›
“I write what I like”: Aké Arts & Book Festival 2016 in Abeokuta, Nigeria
AiW Guest: Nathan Suhr-Sytsma The fourth incarnation of the Aké Arts & Book Festival took place 15-19 November 2016, in Abeokuta, Nigeria, the birthplace of Wole Soyinka, and shares a name with Soyinka’s classic memoir of his childhood, Aké. The… Read More ›
Les Blancs – Farber’s production provoked reflection on innocence, the personal and the political, and choosing sides
AiW Guest Katarzyna Kubin The National Theatre’s production of Lorraine Hansberry’s play, Les Blancs, directed by Yaël Farber, involved phenomenal use of sound, music and lighting, live fire on stage, and a nuanced mastery of the smallest details: from the… Read More ›
A Space of One’s Own – A summary of a conversation between the 2016 Caine Prize shortlisted writers
AiW Guest: Katarzyna Kubin With only days left before the winner of the 2016 Caine Prize for African Writing is announced on 4th July, the five short-listed writers have been on a whirlwind circuit of public events throughout London, from a… Read More ›
‘(Re)Viewing the Visual: Art, Photography, Film’ – Reflections on the 5th African Popular Cultures Workshop at the University of Sussex, 19 April 2016
Aiw Guest: Matthew Lecznar Now in its fifth year, the University of Sussex’s African Popular Cultures Workshop creates a lively space where practitioners, researchers and enthusiasts alike come together to consider and celebrate aspects of cultural production in Africa and… Read More ›
Review: Moses Tladi UNEARTHED, South African National Gallery, 24 September 2015 – 31 March 2016
AiW Guest: Anthea Gordon To get to the South African National Art Gallery (SANG) you walk through the Company Gardens in Cape Town’s city centre. After passing baobab trees, a rose garden, and fountains in the middle of green lawns,… Read More ›
Future Visions: Five Breakout Talents in African Film Today
AiW Guest: Sarah Jilani Returning to screens across London this past November, the Royal African Society’s annual Film Africa festival celebrated and promoted filmmaking from various countries across the continent. In a colourful week of reunions, fresh faces and thought-provoking… Read More ›
Facing Forward: Africa Utopia, Review
AiW Guest Steve Haines Sunday’s panel session Facing Forward was introduced by the chair, festival curator Hannah Pool, as bringing together the many strands of Africa Utopia and giving an opportunity for speakers from diverse disciplines to reflect on the… Read More ›
A Question of Power: Ben Okri’s “Meditations on Greatness” at Africa Writes
AiW Guest Réhab Abdelghany I first saw Ben Okri in a photograph that the Africa Centre had sent me back in 2000 to accompany an interview with the first Caine Prize winner, Leila Aboulela, which I published later in Egypt. In… Read More ›
Zanele Muholi & Lerato Dumse at the University of Brighton (12/03/15)
AiW Guest: Tessa Lewin. On 12th March 2015 the University of Brighton was visited by two extraordinary South Africans – Zanele Muholi and Lerato Dumse. They were talking about queer black visual activism in South Africa, 21 years after the advent… Read More ›
Review: Stellenbosch Dirt Colloquium, March 2015
AiW Guest: Eckard Smuts. Now, almost two weeks after the event, as I try to assemble a tidy picture of the sway and flow of our numerous discussions, an image comes back to me: a horn, black, from the mouth… Read More ›
Celebrating the Publication of Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s ‘Dust’
On 4 December 2014, in the grand setting of Marlborough House (Binyavanga Wainaina wryly explains away his lateness as a consequence of getting lost in Prince Charles’s bedroom) a polite, excited crowd gathers to celebrate the publication of Yvonne Adhiambo… Read More ›
What Are Publishers Looking For in Fiction?: Report from Ake Festival, November 2014
AiW Guest Emma Shercliff The theme of the second Ake Festival, which took place from 18-22 November 2014 in Abeokuta, Nigeria, was ‘Bridges and Pathways’. Festival Director Lola Shoneyin had emphasized that the focus this year would be ‘on building… Read More ›
Literary Studies at the African Studies Association 2014: Review
AiW Guest Nathan Suhr-Sytsma The 57th annual meeting of the African Studies Association took place in Indianapolis over the weekend of 20-23rd November, under the theme ‘Rethinking Violence, Reconstruction and Reconciliation’. A large interdisciplinary conference with more than two thousand… Read More ›
Abderrahmane Sissako’s ‘Timbuktu’ (2014): Film Africa, Review
AiW Guest Sarah Jilani Returning to London for its fourth year, the Royal African Society’s Film Africa 2014 festival brought a wealth of diverse voices from Africa and beyond in a celebration of past and present filmmaking from the continent…. Read More ›
Between Imagination and Madness: Matière grise (2011) – review
AiW Guest Catherine Gilbert Matière grise (Grey Matter), 2011. Directed by Kivu Ruhorahoza. 110 min. Kinyarwanda and French with English subtitles. 2014 marks the twentieth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda in which as many as one million people were… Read More ›
