LITERATURE - The African Mirror

Jul

2023

Paulina Chiziane, Mozambique’s grand novelist, finally receives her prestigious award

PAULINA Chiziane, the first woman to publish a novel in Mozambique, has become the first African woman to receive the most important award for Portuguese literature, the Camões Prize. She’s also the first to break all the rules about what a writer may reveal about Mozambique’s patriarchal culture and social taboos. Born in Manjacaze in 1955 and raised in the capital, Maputo, Chiziane’s mother tongue is Chopi, a Bantu language spoken along the southern coast of Mozambique, which she practised along with Portuguese, the language imposed during the colonial period. Today Chiziane has a degree in linguistics and is a…

Jun

2023

By The African Mirror

South African activist Frank Anthony wrote a novel that has been forgotten: why it shouldn’t have been

LITERATURE

HOW does it come about that a man who dedicated the greater part of his life to a vision of a just South Africa, and sacrificed his family and personal relationships to do so, disappears from the annals of the country’s history? How does a writer with consummate command of two of South Africa’s national languages – English and Afrikaans – and whose work in poetry and prose reflects deep insights into world politics, literature and culture come to be virtually totally forgotten? Author F. FIONA MOOLLA, Senior Lecturer in English, University of the Western Cape This is what happened…

Jun

2023

By The African Mirror

Animal Farm has been translated into Shona – why a group of Zimbabwean writers undertook the task

LITERATURE

SINCE independence in 1980, Zimbabwe has in some ways become like Animal Farm. Like the pigs in the classic 1945 novel by English writer George Orwell, the country’s post-liberation leaders have hijacked a revolution that was once rooted in righteous outrage. In Zimbabwe, the revolution was against colonialism and its practices of extraction and exploitation. Author TINASHE MUSHAKAVANHU, Junior Research Fellow, University of Oxford The lead characters in Animal Farm have the propensity for evil and the greed for power found in despots throughout history, including former Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe’s leaders have also acted for personal gain. They…

Jun

2023

By The African Mirror

Ama Ata Aidoo: the pioneering writer from Ghana left behind a string of feminist classics

LITERATURE

PROLIFIC author and former Ghanaian education minister Ama Ata Aidoo passed away on 31 May 2023 at the age of 81. News of her death reverberated around the world, proof of her towering influence in literary, feminist and political spaces. Aidoo was Ghana’s foremost woman writer and her distinguished career spanned several decades. Her literary contribution places her among the first generation of African women writers of the post-independence era. After independence in Ghana in 1957 she became a leading feminist voice within postcolonial writing. Author ROSE A. SACKEYFIO, Associate Professor of English and Liberal Studies, Winston-Salem State University For…

Jun

2023

By ROGER SOUTHALL

Harry Oppenheimer biography shows the South African mining magnate’s hand in economic policies

LITERATURE

IN Harry Oppenheimer: Diamonds, Gold and Dynasty, his outstanding biography of the South African mining magnate who died in 2000, Michael Cardo shows that there is still mileage to be made in the study of dead white males who played a role in the making of South Africa. Based on a remarkable depth of research, it is written in an elegant style which makes for a delightfully easy read. Author ROGER SOUTHALL, Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand It is rendered the more impressive by the author’s deep conversance with the debates over the relationships between mining capital, Afrikaner…

May

2023

By The African Mirror

Abdellah Taïa is Morocco’s first openly gay writer – his work reimagines being Muslim, queer and African

LITERATURE

ABDELLAH Taïa was born in 1973 in Rabat, Morocco. He currently lives in Paris. He is the first writer from North Africa – and in fact the Arab world – to openly declare that he is gay. In 2006, he came out in a highly publicised article in the Moroccan magazine Tel Quel. This was considered scandalous by conservative Muslims. Authors GIBSON NCUBE, Lecturer, Stellenbosch University ADRIAAN VAN KLINKEN, Professor of Religion and African Studies, University of Leeds Being queer is often seen as conflicting with being religious. Yet, in African contexts – as in other parts of the world…

May

2023

By The African Mirror

Winnie and Nelson: new book paints a deeply human portrait of the Mandela marriage and South Africa’s struggle

LITERATURE

A powerful new book on Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has just been published. Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage is at once a double biography of South Africa’s two famous liberation leaders and a historical love story about their personal lives. Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years during apartheid and went on to become the country’s first democratic president. For her part, Madikizela-Mandela was persecuted relentlessly by the white minority government as she organised the resistance. After democracy, the couple divorced. Jonny Steinberg, political scientist and award-winning author, answers six questions about his book. Author JONNY STEINBERG, Senior…

May

2023

By The African Mirror

Black and Bold Queens is a new children’s book celebrating women in Ghana’s history

LITERATURE

A new children’s book, Black and Bold Queens: Women in Ghana’s History explores the lives of 16 notable female pioneers and leaders in the West African country, with a strong focus on the independence period of the 1950s and 1960s. It was written by Dr Nikitta Dede Adjirakor, a writer and academic researcher in east and west African literature and popular culture. We asked her about this trailblazing project. Author NIKITTA DEDE ADJIRAKOR, Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Ghana What made you decide to write the book? In 2020, during the first months of the COVID pandemic, I kept thinking…

May

2023

By The African Mirror

Fear and loathing in South Africa: book examines how anxiety plays out in everyday life

LITERATURE

SOCIAL scientists have shown how freedom in South Africa has lost its meaning for many in the country. Despondency about democracy is on the rise as the promise of prosperity under a caring government continues to ring hollow for many, thanks to poor governance, corruption and incompetence. Nicky Falkof is a media studies professor who researches race and anxiety. The Conversation Africa’s Thabo Leshilo spoke to her about her book, Worrier State, which shows how narratives of fear manifest in mainstream and digital media, and the role that ‘race’, class, gender, space and identity play in these in the country.…

May

2023

By ANNA ADIMA

Children’s book revolution: how East African women took on colonialism after independence

LITERATURE

AS independence from British colonial rule swept across East Africa in the early 1960s and freedom was won in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, parents and teachers worried about what their children were reading. Most children’s books on the market were dominated by European writers like Enid Blyton. One of Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiongo’s most stringent criticisms of colonialism was the explosive effect of this “cultural bomb” in the classroom, as missionaries taught African students Western cultures and foreign histories. This, according to Kenyan publisher Henry Chakava, was producing a new breed of black Europeans, who began to despise their…