LITERATURE - The African Mirror

May

2023

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

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…

May

2023

By The African Mirror

Amma Darko uses fiction to portray the real plight of women and street children in Ghana

LITERATURE

AMMA Darko is one of Ghana’s leading novelists, known for exploring gritty social issues and the lives of women. There is much to be unearthed in the childhood narrative of deprivation and danger that she tackles in her 2003 work Faceless. Authors PULENG SEGALO, Chief Albert Luthuli Research Chair, University of South Africa THERESAH PATRINE ENNIN, Senior Lecturer in English, University of Cape Coast Faceless is the story of an investigation into the death of a young girl called Baby T, a child sex worker whose naked body is found dumped behind a marketplace, beaten and mutilated. During the progression…

Apr

2023

By The African Mirror

Guinea book festival hopes to turn the page on low literacy rate

LITERATURE

SOULEYMANE CAMARA GUINEA'S national sports stadium buzzed with people seeking a different kind of workout this week, as minds flexed and stretched in pursuit not of muscle gains, but literary enrichment. The 15th edition of Guinea's "72 Hours of the Book" festival unfolded in venues across the capital Conakry, bringing together a wide array of writers, publishers, and readers from the West African country and across the continent. The annual three-day event is aimed at celebrating books and promoting literacy in a nation where over half the population is illiterate, according to World Bank figures, and access to libraries is…

Mar

2023

By The African Mirror

Noni Jabavu was a pioneering South African writer – a new book shows how relevant she still is

LITERATURE

NONI Jabavu was the first black South African woman to publish memoirs and one of the first African women to pursue a literary career abroad. She left the country as a teenager to pursue an education and returned intermittently throughout her life. She returned to South Africa in 1977 to research her father’s biography. Some of her best-known work became the witty, insightful and politically charged columns she wrote for the Daily Dispatch newspaper. But this pioneering figure had been all but forgotten until writer and academic Makhosazana Xaba and historian Athambile Masola focused their attention on her life and…

Mar

2023

By The African Mirror

Toyin Falola: 3 recent books that explain the work of Nigeria’s famous decolonial scholar

LITERATURE

TOYIN Falola, distinguished professor of history, is one of Africa’s most accomplished intellectuals. Born Oloruntoyin Falola in 1953 in the Nigerian city of Ibadan, he grew up in a sprawling, polygamous household that practised Islam, Christianity and ancient Yoruba spirituality. Author SANYA OSHA, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape Town This confluence of multiple worldviews and religions reflects in his thinking and in his massive academic output. Falola has produced something like 200 books in all areas of the human and social sciences and travels widely to deliver lectures at conferences and public events. Africa…

Mar

2023

By The African Mirror

From Chinua Achebe to Toyin Falola – 5 essential books Nigeria’s new president should read

LITERATURE

NOT many African political leaders are known to have publicly declared their love of reading. US President Barack Obama popularised the idea of a recommended reading list and he still shares his annual choice. Author OLAYINKA OYEGBILE, Journalist and Communications scholar, Trinity University, Lagos As a communications scholar and a book reviewer, I made a short list of essential reads for Nigeria’s new president. My selection of books is based on what a new president needs to know when he takes the reins of a deeply divided and disillusioned country. Nigeria has many problems. Disunity deepened under the Muhammadu Buhari…

Feb

2023

By The African Mirror

Invisible Trillions review: global capitalism operates beyond the rule of law and threatens democracy

LITERATURE

SECRECY has become as important for corporations as transparent and taxable profits used to be, according to Raymond W. Baker in his new book Invisible Trillions. Global capitalism, he argues, operates beyond the rule of law. This contributes to extreme inequality that threatens liberal democracy. Author JOHN J STREMLAU, Honorary Professor of International Relations, University of the Witwatersrand Deals in the financial secrecy system account for half of global economic operations. This is far beyond illicit transfers of funds through corporate under-pricing and overpricing of exports and imports, or the drug and other criminal networks 50 years ago. Tax havens,…

Mar

2023

By The African Mirror

Sex, intimacy and black middle-class Christianity in South Africa – a difficult history

LITERATURE

A new book, Convening Black Intimacy, explores the history of Christianity, gender and precolonial marriage and sex traditions in South Africa in the late 1800s and early 1900s. To conduct her study, historian Natasha Erlank drew on court records of cases of seduction, church records, anthropological texts, and many sources from black authors, including black newspapers and novels as well as songs sung by black women. What is clear is that black South Africans had loving, intimate relationships that they fought hard to maintain under the destruction brought about by colonialism and apartheid. We asked her more about her fascinating…

Feb

2023

By The African Mirror

Travelling while black: 7 South African travelogues you should read

LITERATURE

TRAVEL writing in Africa is often associated with colonial ventures of the past or white adventure pursuits of today. But Africans themselves have long produced captivating travel texts in oral and written forms. We need to look beyond narrowly western or white accounts as travel writing is produced across the world by an extensive range of writers. Literary ezines (electronic magazines on the internet) dedicated to diverse travel writing are thriving. Author JANET REMMINGTON, Research Associate, Humanities Research Centre (and African Literature Department, University of the Witwatersrand), University of York That said, the cultures and literatures of travel from Africa…

Jan

2023

By The African Mirror

Ernest Cole: South Africa’s most famous photobook has been republished after 55 years

LITERATURE

PHOTOGRAPHER Ernest Cole was born in 1940 in the Pretoria township of Eersterust, just before apartheid was formally introduced in South Africa in 1948. Author KYLIE THOMAS, Senior Researcher, NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies He was 20 when thousands of people gathered outside a police station in Sharpeville township to protest against being forced to carry passbooks by the white minority government. On that day at least 69 people were shot dead, hundreds were injured, and a state of emergency was declared. The Sharpeville Massacre is regarded as a turning point in the struggle for liberation in…