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US Christian right has taken aim at LGBTIQ+ rights, sex education and abortion in Africa – new book

US Christian right has taken aim at LGBTIQ+ rights, sex education and abortion in Africa – new book

A new book – The US Christian Right and Pro-Family Politics in 21st Century Africa – reveals the role played by some right-wing US Christian groups in trying to spread their social and moral influence in African countries. Sociologist Haley McEwen, who specialises in the subject, answers five questions about her book. HALEY MCEWEN, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Gothenburg What do you want readers to take away? I hope that readers can better understand the reasons why lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) rights, abortion and sexuality education have become so highly politicised in African countries (and other…
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Women in South Africa’s armed struggle: new book records history at first hand

Women in South Africa’s armed struggle: new book records history at first hand

SOUTH Africa’s young democracy was a culmination of years of sweat, blood and revolution against the apartheid regime. In the early 1960s, after decades of “non-violence” as a policy of resistance, the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) formed military wings to take the fight to the apartheid regime. THOKO SIPUNGU, Lecturer in Sociology, Rhodes University Based on the living record and popular discourse, it would be easy to assume that the struggle against apartheid was almost entirely the domain of men. But women played a crucial role – one which is only really coming to light…
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Nervous Conditions: on translating one of Zimbabwe’s most famous novels into Shona

Nervous Conditions: on translating one of Zimbabwe’s most famous novels into Shona

THE publishing journey of Zimbabwean writer and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions wasn’t easy. Yet the novel is today considered by many as one of Africa’s 100 best books of the 20th century and is studied at universities around the world. TINASHE MUSHAKAVANHU, Junior Research Fellow, University of Oxford When she submitted the manuscript to publishing houses in Zimbabwe in the early 1980s, they all turned it down. Dangarembga felt at the time that it was “very difficult for men to accept the things that women write and want to write about: and the men (were) the publishers”. It was…
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Books: folklore and fantasy combine in Langabi, a supernatural historical epic from Zimbabwe

Books: folklore and fantasy combine in Langabi, a supernatural historical epic from Zimbabwe

IN 2023, award-winning Zimbabwean author Christopher Mlalazi published a new book, Langabi: Season of the Beast. He’s the author of novels like Running with Mother (2012), Dancing with Life: Tales from the Township (2012) and They are Coming (2014). His books grapple with diverse social and political issues in Zimbabwe. As a scholar of African literature, including speculative fiction, I have researched Mlalazi’s previous books, especially his depiction of the Gukurahundi Genocide in Zimbabwe. Langabi is a novel that draws on the storytelling of the Ndebele people to recount the tale of a young man who finds himself in a…
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Zuleikha Mayat: South African author and activist who led a life of courage, compassion and integrity

Zuleikha Mayat: South African author and activist who led a life of courage, compassion and integrity

FEW Indian South African women have achieved wider public recognition than author, human rights and cultural activist Zuleikha Mayat, who passed away on 2 February 2024. An honorary doctorate from the University of KwaZulu-Natal was just one of many awards bestowed on her during a life that spanned almost 98 years. SALEEM BADAT, Research Professor, UFS History Department, University of the Free State Mayat was a remarkable pioneer, evocative writer, public speaker, civic worker, human rights champion and philanthropist. She was a staunch supporter of Palestinian freedom and an end to Israeli apartheid and genocide. I am a scholar of…
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4 must-read books from east Africa in 2023: from Tanzanian masters to Ugandan queens

4 must-read books from east Africa in 2023: from Tanzanian masters to Ugandan queens

EAST African literature continues to grow and reshape itself in exciting new ways – and 2023 was no exception. The world really did take notice of the region when Tanzanian-British author Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. Interest in Gurnah’s work continued last year when he made a homecoming to East Africa. PETER KIMANI, Professor of Practice, Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communications (GSMC) But it is in Tanzania that Gurnah made a proper homecoming in 2023 – through the first ever Kiswahili translation of Paradise, now out as Peponi. I am an…
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Black Ghosts: Noo Saro-Wiwa’s new book is a powerful reflection on Africans in China

Black Ghosts: Noo Saro-Wiwa’s new book is a powerful reflection on Africans in China

NOO SARO-WIWA is a celebrated Nigerian-born travel writer. Her latest book is Black Ghosts. It explores, with candour and compassion, the lives of several African economic migrants living in China, a group of people who are key to trade between the continents. As a scholar of African travel writing and mobility, among other fields, I read the book with keen interest and then asked Saro-Wiwa more about it. JANET REMMINGTON, Research Associate, Humanities Research Centre (and African Literature Department, University of the Witwatersrand), University of York Janet Remmington: Let’s start with the title: Black Ghosts. And the subtitle which outlines…
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Interview: Acclaimed Zambian writer Mubanga Kalimamukwento on lifting the veil around stories of children during the HIV/AIDS pandemic

Interview: Acclaimed Zambian writer Mubanga Kalimamukwento on lifting the veil around stories of children during the HIV/AIDS pandemic

MUBANGA Kalimamukwento is a Zambian human rights lawyer and award-winning writer who has written extensively about the intimate lives of characters facing unimaginable challenges during the AIDS epidemic in Zambia. Her latest but unfinished novel earned her a place as a 2023 Miles Morland Scholar, a scholarship scheme which aims to give African writers of both fiction and non-fiction the financial freedom to complete an English-language book. The following is an extract of a longer conversation. In your first novel, the Mourning Bird, you choose to write from the perspective of a child; why did you choose to do this?…
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Good Jew, Bad Jew: new book explores why the West views brutality against Ukrainians and Palestinians differently

Good Jew, Bad Jew: new book explores why the West views brutality against Ukrainians and Palestinians differently

IN a recently published book Steven Friedman, who has written extensively on the political and social aspects of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, explores the racist underpinnings of the west’s responses to Israel’s war in Gaza. This is an extract from the book, Good Jew, Bad Jew. STEVEN FRIEDMAN, Professor of Political Studies, University of Johannesburg Ugandan academic Mahmood Mamdani sees a link between the violence of the coloniser and the slaughter of Jews and Slavs by the Nazis. The racial theories of Houston Stewart Chamberlain and others who claimed the Aryan race was superior meant that Jews and Slavs,…
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South African politicians vs judges: new book defends the Constitution

South African politicians vs judges: new book defends the Constitution

IN 1994, South Africa became a democracy founded on a supreme constitution. The Constitution’s preamble affirms the nation’s quest to establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights. The Constitution clearly envisioned political accountability and judicial review of executive and legislative actions. But, almost three decades on, this vision is increasingly under virulent criticism by populist politicians. ANTHONY DIALA, Director, Centre for Legal Integration in Africa, University of the Western Cape Dan Mafora’s new book, Capture in the Court – In Defence of Judges and the Constitution, likens the rising rebellion against judges and the…
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