It is time to celebrate the elders of African literature. Time to exchange memories of our first reading experiences. To take a look at our bookshelves or at those in public libraries: where can we find those orange coloured, cheap paperbacks of the African Writers Series? Which book was it again that impressed me most? Write to us. Voor Nederlandse versie klik hier. On this site of the ZAM Boekenclub van lezers en schrijvers (ZAM Bookclub of readers and writers) and during live events we will...
It is time to celebrate the elders of African literature. Time to exchange memories of our first reading experiences. To take a look at our bookshelves or at those in public libraries: where can we find those orange coloured, cheap paperbacks of the African Writers Series? Which...
A united front between lawyers and activists signals an end to patience with the ‘scandal of today’. Seated in a betting joint in Douala’s Bepanda quarter, Jorel Njoubissi scrolls through his smartphone and stumbles on the major corruption “scandal of today,” as he calls it—dated 10 March 2025—on the Facebook page of prominent whistleblower and influencer Nzuimanto. He shares his dismay with the other patrons in the shop. “In a normal country, these persons would be behind bars. But the population...
A united front between lawyers and activists signals an end to patience with the ‘scandal of today’. Seated in a betting joint in Douala’s Bepanda quarter, Jorel Njoubissi scrolls through his smartphone and stumbles on the major corruption “scandal of today,” as he calls it—dated 10...
Facing jail, sealed offices and exile: the lawyers who don’t give up. While law firms elsewhere often crumble and fold under intimidation by the powerful, legal rebels in five African countries routinely risk imprisonment and death threats in their fight for justice. In ZAM’s new transnational investigation, Josephine Chinele, Emmanuel Mutaizibwa, Elizabeth BanyiTabi, Theophilus Abbah, Seth Bokpe, and Edmund Boateng portray those who fight for the proper rule of law in Malawi, Uganda, Cameroon,...
Facing jail, sealed offices and exile: the lawyers who don’t give up. While law firms elsewhere often crumble and fold under intimidation by the powerful, legal rebels in five African countries routinely risk imprisonment and death threats in their fight for justice. In ZAM’s new...
Mass mortality due to the cessation of aid. Economic subjugation through import tariffs. Tighter visa rules and travel bans. It requires excessive optimism to discern anything positive amid US President Donald Trump’s plethora of decrees affecting Africa. Yet, the prompt surrender by some African leaders may do little to map out a way forward for the continent. Zimbabwean President Mnangagwa’s offer to Trump to withdraw all import tariffs on US goods won’t help his country. The same can be said for...
Mass mortality due to the cessation of aid. Economic subjugation through import tariffs. Tighter visa rules and travel bans. It requires excessive optimism to discern anything positive amid US President Donald Trump’s plethora of decrees affecting Africa. Yet, the prompt surrender...
Artist Eileen Perrier argues that a person is a person beyond social and cultural divides. In her exhibition a thousand small stories , she beautifully pieces them together. In her work, she has always used photographic portraiture to forge connections between people, acknowledging the profound value of being seen. Often creating makeshift studios, she brings her sitters together around shared experiences of kinship, interests, or place. Her work has evolved into a form of social engagement that...
Artist Eileen Perrier argues that a person is a person beyond social and cultural divides. In her exhibition a thousand small stories , she beautifully pieces them together. In her work, she has always used photographic portraiture to forge connections between people, acknowledging...
A new exhibition in Paris celebrates the presence and influence of 150 Black artists in France between the 1950s and 2000. To those familiar with the Présence Africaine Review and Revue Noire , Gerard Sekoto, Wilson Tibério, Ben Enwonwu, or Ernest Mancoba are household names. However, their artistic creations have hardly been on display in France before. And this goes for most of the works by the 150 artists now represented at the Centre Pompidou. Sekoto’s 1946 self-portrait has become the face of...
A new exhibition in Paris celebrates the presence and influence of 150 Black artists in France between the 1950s and 2000. To those familiar with the Présence Africaine Review and Revue Noire , Gerard Sekoto, Wilson Tibério, Ben Enwonwu, or Ernest Mancoba are household names....
What happened to the Bangwa Queen, the Benin Kingdom’s Okukor, the Namibian Ekori, and the Cullinan Diamond? In its first edition of 2025, the weekly online magazine The Continent profiled eight historical artefacts from every corner of Africa. This remarkable archive of colonial theft has now been brought together in a special edition of the magazine, curated by journalist and filmmaker Shola Lawal. Each story is accompanied by an original illustration, commissioned by art director Wynonba Mutisi....
What happened to the Bangwa Queen, the Benin Kingdom’s Okukor, the Namibian Ekori, and the Cullinan Diamond? In its first edition of 2025, the weekly online magazine The Continent profiled eight historical artefacts from every corner of Africa. This remarkable archive of colonial...
(Nederlands hieronder) Dear friends, The global tech industry is overwhelmingly white, male, and notoriously discriminatory. According to TechCrunch , over 70% of tech leaders are men, while only 3% of the workforce identifies as Black. These structural inequalities are not glitches—they’re features of the system. But what if we could create a glitch that is not an error but a strategy for resistance? ZAM Magazine (the Netherlands) and Bubblegumclub (South Africa) are doing exactly that in a new...
(Nederlands hieronder) Dear friends, The global tech industry is overwhelmingly white, male, and notoriously discriminatory. According to TechCrunch , over 70% of tech leaders are men, while only 3% of the workforce identifies as Black. These structural inequalities are not...
In the bombardment of punitive measures unleashed by the US government in recent weeks, it is striking how much South Africa has had to endure. Modest support for the distribution of anti-retroviral drugs has been halted, along with other aid worth half a billion dollars. The extension of the trade agreement between the two countries now seems unlikely. Finally, in mid-March, the South African ambassador to the US was declared persona non grata. Trump surrounds himself with a group of South African...
In the bombardment of punitive measures unleashed by the US government in recent weeks, it is striking how much South Africa has had to endure. Modest support for the distribution of anti-retroviral drugs has been halted, along with other aid worth half a billion dollars. The...
A Century of Black Figuration in Painting brings together artworks from the past 100 years in a dialogue between artists and thinkers around the world. With a focus on painting, the exhibition celebrates the myriad ways in which artists from Africa and its diaspora have imagined, positioned, memorialised and asserted African and African-descent experiences. It contributes to the critical discourse on African and Black liberation, intellectual and philosophical movements. The title of the exhibition...
A Century of Black Figuration in Painting brings together artworks from the past 100 years in a dialogue between artists and thinkers around the world. With a focus on painting, the exhibition celebrates the myriad ways in which artists from Africa and its diaspora have imagined,...
A Century of Black Figuration in Painting brings together artworks from the past 100 years in a dialogue between artists and thinkers around the world. With a focus on painting, the exhibition celebrates the myriad ways in which artists from Africa and its diaspora have imagined, positioned, memorialised and asserted African and African-descent experiences. It contributes to the critical discourse on African and Black liberation, intellectual and philosophical movements. The title of the exhibition...
A Century of Black Figuration in Painting brings together artworks from the past 100 years in a dialogue between artists and thinkers around the world. With a focus on painting, the exhibition celebrates the myriad ways in which artists from Africa and its diaspora have imagined,...
Increased EU imports place South African coal mining on steroids On 13 March 2025, at the European Union-South Africa summit in Cape Town, EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen pledged another €4.4 billion to “supporting a clean and just energy transition in South Africa”. Meanwhile, EU companies are sourcing eight times more coal from the same country than they used to in partnership with local companies that are digging up -and poisoning- entire provinces. An investigation. Soot-stained...
Increased EU imports place South African coal mining on steroids On 13 March 2025, at the European Union-South Africa summit in Cape Town, EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen pledged another €4.4 billion to “supporting a clean and just energy transition in South Africa”....
Anas Aremeyaw Anas wins defamation case against abusive Ghanaian politician The words of a colleague in a chat group of African investigative journalists said it all: “You’ve made all of us a bit safer, Anas. Thank you.” And indeed, investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ victory over a Ghanaian politician in a US court will resonate through political elite circles that are used to intimidating, harassing and even murdering journalists, and not only in Ghana. The undercover documentaries in...
Anas Aremeyaw Anas wins defamation case against abusive Ghanaian politician The words of a colleague in a chat group of African investigative journalists said it all: “You’ve made all of us a bit safer, Anas. Thank you.” And indeed, investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas’...
A wind of change is sweeping through Senegal’s capital, Dakar, where the recently announced renaming of French colonial-era streets marks part of a broader movement. The new government, led by former opposition activists President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, signals a political rupture and systemic transformation—both in relation to the former colonial power, France, and in domestic affairs. Amid these shifts, Dakar pulses as a hub of new ideas, driven by the ambition to...
A wind of change is sweeping through Senegal’s capital, Dakar, where the recently announced renaming of French colonial-era streets marks part of a broader movement. The new government, led by former opposition activists President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Prime Minister Ousmane...
On Tuesday, March 18, 2025, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands are scheduled to visit Kenya. Under normal circumstances, this would be a moment of shared celebration between two nations bound by a history of trade, agriculture, and development cooperation. As regional hubs, both countries have ports that serve as important channels to large hinterlands, facilitating commerce across continents. But these are not normal times. Deepening crisis Since President William Ruto’s...
On Tuesday, March 18, 2025, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands are scheduled to visit Kenya. Under normal circumstances, this would be a moment of shared celebration between two nations bound by a history of trade, agriculture, and development cooperation. As...
[ text in English below ] Beste mensen, ZAM Boekenclub over de nieuwe roman van Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Dream Count. In samenwerking met de Nigerian Youths in the Netherlands (NYN) en hun boekenclub. Tien jaar hebben we gewacht op een opvolger van de succesroman Americanah van de Nigeriaanse auteur Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Maar nu is die er eindelijk, gelijktijdig verschenen in het oorspronkelijke Engels en in een Nederlandse vertaling. De titel is in beide versies: Dream Count. Datum zaterdag...
[ text in English below ] Beste mensen, ZAM Boekenclub over de nieuwe roman van Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Dream Count. In samenwerking met de Nigerian Youths in the Netherlands (NYN) en hun boekenclub. Tien jaar hebben we gewacht op een opvolger van de succesroman Americanah van de...
Dutch lobbyist Henk-Jan van Schothorst, affiliated with the right-wing orthodox Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij (State Reformed Protestant Party) and founder of Christian Council International, has been instrumental in exporting anti-rights legislation across the African continent. In early 2023, the Ugandan parliament passed a brutal anti-gay law mandating the death penalty for "aggravated cases of homosexuality" and imposing a 20-year prison sentence for the “promotion” of homosexuality. Shortly...
Dutch lobbyist Henk-Jan van Schothorst, affiliated with the right-wing orthodox Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij (State Reformed Protestant Party) and founder of Christian Council International, has been instrumental in exporting anti-rights legislation across the African continent....
There’s something happening in Algeria. A spark of curiosity has been ignited and a community of photographers are emerging with different perspectives and questions on nationalism, tradition and the lived experiences of the people who exist within the country bordered by the Mediterranean Sea. Award-winning photographer, Abdo Shanan - who was born in the Algerian city of Oran to a Sudanese father and an Algerian mother, partially raised in Libya before later returning to Algeria in his twenties -...
There’s something happening in Algeria. A spark of curiosity has been ignited and a community of photographers are emerging with different perspectives and questions on nationalism, tradition and the lived experiences of the people who exist within the country bordered by the...
The Glimmers of Hope in the 2025 Nelson Mandela Lecture “The fight for Kenya’s and Africa’s soul is far from over. But for the first time in a long time, we, the people, are reclaiming who we are. We now remember what it means to fight for a better future. More importantly, we know what it feels like to win.” These words, the final paragraph of John-Allan Namu’s Nelson Mandela Lecture, delivered at the International Theatre Amsterdam on 16 February, preceded a standing ovation from the sold-out...
The Glimmers of Hope in the 2025 Nelson Mandela Lecture “The fight for Kenya’s and Africa’s soul is far from over. But for the first time in a long time, we, the people, are reclaiming who we are. We now remember what it means to fight for a better future. More importantly, we know...
Photographer Elzo Bonam once again did a great job recording this year’s event. Thanks, Elzo! The below selection provides a tour through the corridors, the Koninklijke Foyer, the Gijsbrecht Bordes and, above all, the Rabo Zaal of the Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, where John-Allan Namu delivered his speech. If you were there, you’ll feel the vibe again; if you couldn’t make it at least you’ll get a feel of what turned out to be a very, very successful 5th edition of the Nelson Mandela Lecture...
Photographer Elzo Bonam once again did a great job recording this year’s event. Thanks, Elzo! The below selection provides a tour through the corridors, the Koninklijke Foyer, the Gijsbrecht Bordes and, above all, the Rabo Zaal of the Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, where...
In his Nelson Mandela Lecture on Sunday, 16 February, speaker John-Allan Namu expressed optimism about the potential for change across the African continent, attributing it to an ‘upright’ Generation Z that refuses to be held in ‘subservience.’ Amid the many stories of African oppression and conflict, where does Namu find his hope? ZAM offers a bird’s-eye view of a continent where youth—and increasingly, the adult population—are indeed rising up. Mozambique: a crumbling ruling party Mozambican...
In his Nelson Mandela Lecture on Sunday, 16 February, speaker John-Allan Namu expressed optimism about the potential for change across the African continent, attributing it to an ‘upright’ Generation Z that refuses to be held in ‘subservience.’ Amid the many stories of African...
