Tolu Ogunlesi at 3 Quarks Daily: In my mind I see Africa 2.0 as a giant construction site. So much is going on simultaneously: sketching, assembling, pulling down, and dredging; and arguments and debates, some threatening to turn violent. Architectural plans are emerging and disappearing and changing as construction is going on, and accidents happen… Read More »
A movie set in Kinshasa, by Congolese director Djo Tunda Wa Munga, Viva Riva last week won the Best Africa Movie at the MTV movies award. I saw an interview with the director on Al Jazeera’s movie programme The Fabulous Picture Show (you should consider watching the programme. It mostly features non-blockbuster European, Middle-Eastern and (sometimes)… Read More »
Orlando Julius Ekemode sings Ise.
Here.
Read the full story here.
In London Review of Books: Laurent Gbagbo was born in 1945 in the so-called ‘cocoa loop’ in the south-west. ‘When I went to school, rural Ivory Coast was still subdivided into military “circles” which were administered by French officers,’ he told me when I interviewed him in June 2009. ‘The economy was entirely in French… Read More »
The Economist: Once feted as saviours in much of Africa, Chinese have come to be viewed with mixed feelings—especially in smaller countries where China’s weight is felt all the more. To blame, in part, are poor business practices imported alongside goods and services. Chinese construction work can be slapdash and buildings erected by mainland firms… Read More »
G. Pascal Zachary in Fanzine: The master narratives about Africa are inevitably political; art about Africa and Africans, especially art created by non-Africans, inevitably becomes intertwined with the historical use and abuse of the African imaginary. The political entanglements of literary artists engaged with African affairs are complicated by the emergence of a new humanitarianism,… Read More »
Sometime last week I attended a podium discussion at the Berlin Humboldt University. The topic was Africa as the laboratory of globalisation. The idea was to discuss different ways in which Africa serves as a laboratory for ideas that then travel to other parts of the world. Some of those on the podium are STS… Read More »