LITERATURE - The African Mirror

Nov

08

2020

John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo: Nigeria’s bard, playwright and activist

LITERATURE

SOLA BALOGUN, Lecturer, Theatre and Media Arts, Federal University, Oye Ekiti AHEAD of his death on October 13, 2020, the renowned Nigerian poet and playwright John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo had given instructions on his burial. He wrote a poem, “My Last Testament”: This is to my family Do not take me to a mortuary, Do not take me to a church, Whether I die in or out of town, But take me home to my own, and To lines and tunes, tested on the waves Of time, let me lie in my place On the Kiagbodo River. If Moslems do it…

Nov

03

2020

By The African Mirror

Eight common problems with science literature reviews and how to fix them

LITERATURE

NEAL ROBERT HADDAWAY, Research Fellow, Africa Centre for Evidence, University of Johannesburg RESEARCHERS regularly review the literature that’s generated by others in their field. This is an integral part of day-to-day research: finding relevant research, reading and digesting the main findings, summarising across papers, and making conclusions about the evidence base as a whole. However, there is a fundamental difference between brief, narrative approaches to summarising a selection of studies and attempting to reliably, comprehensively summarise an evidence base to support decision-making in policy and practice. So-called “evidence-informed decision-making” relies on rigorous systematic approaches to synthesising the evidence. Systematic review…

Oct

13

2020

By The African Mirror

Anxiety in Johannesburg: new views on a global south city

LITERATURE

NICKY FALKOF, Associate professor, University of the Witwatersrand COBUS VAN STADEN, Senior Researcher: China-Africa: South African Institute of International Affairs, University of the Witwatersrand WITHIN the media and popular culture of the global north, cities like Johannesburg, South Africa, are often presented as a site of trouble. They’re the source of the immigrants, drugs, violence, poverty, disease and environmental crisis that worry nervous citizens of more “developed” cities. Even when they take centre stage in international media production, global south cities like Johannesburg are laden with fear or fantasy. Think of the films District 9 with its slavering Nigerian gangsters,…

Oct

11

2020

By The African Mirror

PRISCILLA JANA: 1943 – 2020

LITERATURE

In honour of Priscilla Jana, the legendary human rights lawyer, who passed away, The African Mirror publishes an excerpt from her book, “Fighting for Mandela”. PRISCILLA JANA IF the breadwinner was imprisoned. I would organise help as much as I could, and all the time I knew it was the right thing to do, just as using every possible angle of the law to fight cases and win acquittals was the right thing to do. This was giving me confidence in the work I took on. So when the exceptional case of Solomon Mahlangu landed on my desk, and in…

Oct

09

2020

By The African Mirror

The Bitch Is Still In Heat

LITERATURE

VUSI MAVIMBELA Vusi Mavimbela SOME time towards the end of November 1990, I received a phone call on my landline of my bachelor flat. I had just woken up and I was still in bed watching the news on TV. I picked up the receiver and heard a booming voice: ‘Kunjani (how are you) Maphepha? I was silent for a moment. I was trying to identify the voice. ‘Who is calling?’ I asked. The voice responded: ‘No man, I thought perhaps we could have a chat for old time’s sake.’ I still could not place the voice. I did not…

Oct

09

2020

By The African Mirror

American “family” poet Louise Glück wins Nobel Prize for Literature

LITERATURE

ANNA RINGSTROM and SIMON JOHNSON AMERICAN poet Louise Glück won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature for works exploring family and childhood in an "unmistakable...voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal", the Swedish Academy said on Thursday. Academy Permanent Secretary Mats Malm said that Glück, 77, also a multiple winner of U.S. literary awards, was "surprised and happy" at the news when it came in the early morning hours U.S. time. She gave no immediate comment to journalists gathered outside her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A professor of English at Yale University, Glück first rose to critical acclaim…

Oct

17

2020

By The African Mirror

“They see savages, even when we wear their suits, speak their King’s English and worship their God.”

LITERATURE

WILLIE CURRIE LADY Florrie returned to Johannesburg in February 1906. She was met at the station by her husband, Lord Sudden, and the new Governor of Transvaal Colony, Lord Selborne, who had replaced Lord Milner. The Rand Mines Native Band was playing the Radetzky March with gusto, and the gathered crowd was in a festive mood. As had been expected of her on arrival, she had greeted the Rand Mine managers and their wives, as well as a number of members of Milner’s Kindergarten, who had stayed on after his departure to assist the new governor. Among them were Lionel…

Nov

15

2020

By The African Mirror

African science fiction: rereading the classic Nigerian novel The Palm-wine Drinkard

LITERATURE

IN 1952 The Palm-wine Drinkard became the first West African novel written in English to be published internationally. That it was written by Amos Tutuola, an unknown Nigerian clerk who took to writing to alleviate boredom, meant the book caused a stir. To this day, it’s celebrated as a key example of African fantasy. NEDINE MOONSAMY, Senior Lecturer, University of Pretoria But more recent analysis suggests that the Western view of Tutuola as a fantasy writer is slightly patronising, because it overlooks how seriously his work engages with African reality on its own terms. Similarly, my reading of the novel…

Nov

26

2020

By The African Mirror

Bolu Babalola’s love is in the details

LITERATURE

DANIELLE BOWLER REVIEWING Steve McQueen’s Small Axe, a collection of films, for The New Yorker, the masterful cultural critic Doreen St Félix writes: “One way to measure a filmmaker’s commitment to his subject is to look at the not so minor details, such as costumes, wigs, and food. If the paraphernalia of a people doesn’t feel forged but, rather, appears to have been lifted unmolested from observation or memory, or both, then the effect is immersion – the melding of reality with the world of the screen. Black folks haven’t often felt that rush.” She finds in McQueen’s work “a kind of revolutionary…

Dec

04

2020

By The African Mirror

Dorah Sitole: 1953 to 2021

LITERATURE

IT has been 40 years since Dorah Sitole walked into Canned Food Advisory Service, the marketing division of a container and packaging company called Metal Box, to interview for the position of cooking demonstrator. Her husband told her about the job opening, saying, “I don’t know anyone who cooks better than you.” That moment would launch her groundbreaking career in food and Sitole’s new book is a reflection on this long career that has shaped the path of South African food culture. “It’s 40 years of my professional career,” says Mam’ D, as Dorah Sitole is affectionately known, a week…