LITERATURE - The African Mirror

Jul

2021

The book fair giving Egypt’s writers hope

ONE of Africa's biggest book fairs has come not a moment too soon for authors like Noha Mahmud. The up-and-coming Egyptian author is one of many who struggled to earn a living during the COVID-19 pandemic which devastated Egypt's publishing and book sales industry. As difficult periods go for writers, the last one-and-a-half years have been as tough as they come, for Noha Mahmud, an Egyptian writer in her late 30's. "Publishers stopped buying the literary production of almost all writers," Mahmud said in an interview. "The publishing industry as a whole came to a standstill and with it the…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

New Kiswahili science fiction award charts a path for African languages

LITERATURE

THE 6th edition of The Mabati Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature, suspended last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is back. Founded in 2014, the prize recognises writing in African languages and encourages translation from, between and into African languages. Kiswahili is widely spoken across the east coast of Africa. This year’s prize also offers a special award designed to promote and popularise a Kiswahili vocabulary for technology and digital rights. We spoke to the prize founders – literary academic Lizzy Attree, also of Short Story Day Africa, and literature professor and celebrated author Mukoma Wa Ngugi – on…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

Book Review | Remnants of Miriam Tlali

LITERATURE

BARBARA BOSWELL EDITED by esteemed feminist literary critic Pumla Dineo Gqola, Miriam Tlali: Writing Freedom presents a kaleidoscopic view of Miriam Tlali’s life and writing. The book’s most significant contribution may be that it renders into print, for the first time, a previously unpublished play by the pioneering writer. The text of the play, Crimen Injuria, landed fortuitously with Gqola after a chance encounter at the State Theatre in Pretoria, where a stranger offered it to her, having found it at the theatre. Understanding Writing Freedom’s significance hinges on understanding the significance of Tlali in South African literature. Born in 1933 in Doornfontein, Johannesburg, Tlali…

May

2021

By The African Mirror

Book Review | Cuddling men and tailoring scissors

LITERATURE

MEGAN ROSS THE Madhouse is a work of dazzling complexity, a pan-African tribute to art and artists alike that explores the strange lives of a family of four. Setting the novel against the political uncertainty of Nigeria in the 1980s and 1990s, author TJ Benson takes his readers on a hallucinatory journey spanning decades and time zones with the titular character – an old asylum-cum-family home – as a portal into the secrets, dreams and yearnings of brothers André and Macmillan, and their parents Sweet Mother and Sharriff. The Madhouse calls to mind the energy of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and…

May

2021

By The African Mirror

Book Review | 69 Jerusalem Street

LITERATURE

KARABO KGOLENG LINDIWE Nkutha has small feet. For the longest time, she coveted a pair of All Star takkies but she couldn’t find a place that sold them in her size. One day, her partner – raised in Pretoria – suggested they go to Marabastad to look for them. They found the shoes in Marabastad’s Jerusalem Street, a place that evoked for her an atmospheric combination of Diagonal, Bree and Noord Streets in Johannesburg. Anyone familiar with these streets knows they are sites of enterprise, bustling with crowds of diverse people on different missions, hooting taxis and the obligatory dodgy,…

Jun

2021

By The African Mirror

During lockdown, South African students wrote a book about ‘a world gone mad’

LITERATURE

SOUTH African student voices have largely remained unheard in formal discussions around COVID-19. A pandemic that should not be put to waste, COVID-19, on some podiums, is seen as laying the groundwork for germination of seeds of change. PEET VAN AARDT, Coordinator: Initiative for Creative African Narratives (iCAN) & Lecturer: Academic Literacy, University of the Free State BRIAN SIBANDA, Lecturer/Researcher: Centre for Teaching and Learning at the University of the Free State, University of the Free State The students in this collection of stories by the Initiative for Creative African Narratives (iCAN, a project within the Academy for Multilingualism at…

May

2021

By The African Mirror

Black feminist writers in South Africa raise their voices in a new book

LITERATURE

DESIREE LEWIS, Professor of Gender Studies, University of the Western Cape GABEBA BADEROON, Associate Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies and African Studies, Penn State IN the third decade of the new millennium, despite many publishers still seeing black women’s writing as having a limited market, readers have far more access than before to publications by writers from the global South. In particular, the perspectives of black women are certainly more visible in the public domain. Yet gaps and erasures – based on intellectual authority, financial resources and visibility in the knowledge commons – mean that it’s still easier…

Jun

2021

By The African Mirror

Former minister’s memoir is a candid critique of South Africa’s political economy

LITERATURE

A new book by Rob Davies, a former South African Trade and Industry Minister, provides a candid and detailed insider’s account of the evolution of the country’s post-apartheid political economy. MILLS SOKO, Professor: International Business & Strategy, Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand He makes it clear from the outset that this is a memoir and not an autobiography. But, as one reads on, it becomes obvious that it is impossible to separate his personal experiences from the momentous events that have shaped democratic South Africa. The book’s fourteen chapters cover topics as varied as the apartheid context, the…

May

2021

By The African Mirror

Abi Daré among nominated for NOMMO Awards

LITERATURE

AFRICAN fantasy authors are preparing to celebrate their nominations for the literary NOMMO Awards. The NOMMO Awards are literary awards presented by The African Speculative Fiction Society, that aims to recognise works of mythical, science fiction, horror or alternative historic fiction by Africans. The literary award is named after the Malian mythological creature known as a Nommo, an amphibious being with a cosmological perspective on mastery. Nigeria’s Abi Daré, South African Lauren Beukes, and Kenya’s Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, among others, were shortlisted in categories such as "Best Novel", "Best Short Story" , “Best Novella” and "Best Graphic Novel". New York…

May

2021

By The African Mirror

New Books | Black education during Jim Crow

LITERATURE

DAVID PILGRIM and FRANKLIN HUGHES CIVIL rights leader and renowned journalist Percival Leroy Prattis was just one of many tireless activists who excelled in their studies before going on to fight for racial justice. This article contains racist language that depicts life under Jim Crow conditions in the United States. Race news: African American journalists Percival Leroy Prattis was a pioneering journalist, influential newspaper executive and nationally recognised civil rights leader. He was the city editor of the Chicago Defender when it was the nation’s leading African American weekly newspaper. Later, he spent 30 years at the Pittsburgh Courier, another prominent Black paper.…