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...
In the 2025 Ranking of Most Popular Countries, recently released by the Alliance of Democracies , South Africa ranked seventh . The metric measures “how countries are perceived by their neighbours, key trading partners, and other nations” on issues such as credibility and global trust. South African opinion maker and tech consultant Phumzile van Damme shared this striking result on LinkedIn at a time when U.S. President Trump and a surrounding coterie of South African apartheid beneficiaries had...
In the 2025 Ranking of Most Popular Countries, recently released by the Alliance of Democracies , South Africa ranked seventh . The metric measures “how countries are perceived by their neighbours, key trading partners, and other nations” on issues such as credibility and global...
By documenting life in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria, the photographer explores grief through art. In Unyọñ Ufọk , Emily Nkanga explores grief, identity, and home. Through analog photographs, Nkanga captures fleeting moments of everyday life in her hometown of Akwa Ibom, Nigeria. The images act as a time capsule, preserving the beauty of life’s transient moments. The project began in January 2021, when Nkanga returned home for her father’s burial. After living in the UK for more than seven years, she was...
By documenting life in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria, the photographer explores grief through art. In Unyọñ Ufọk , Emily Nkanga explores grief, identity, and home. Through analog photographs, Nkanga captures fleeting moments of everyday life in her hometown of Akwa Ibom, Nigeria. The images...
Charles Badoue (Ivory Coast, 1987) and Harrison Omoyater (Nigeria, 1994) both fled their home countries. “Art is a remedy for loss and pain.” “Memories of where I grew up slipped out of my mind,” Charles Badoue says in a video accompanying the exhibition he takes part in. While bright colours help mask a dark past, bringing light into the darkness, his paintings also bring repressed memories back to life. A violent conflict in which 800 people died forced him to flee. It was “a massacre by our own...
Charles Badoue (Ivory Coast, 1987) and Harrison Omoyater (Nigeria, 1994) both fled their home countries. “Art is a remedy for loss and pain.” “Memories of where I grew up slipped out of my mind,” Charles Badoue says in a video accompanying the exhibition he takes part in. While...
(Nederlands hieronder) Dear friends, If you haven't already donated , now is your time to create a digital future for all, not just the privileged few, by supporting our Glitching the Future project. With just 10 days left, we still need €5,900 to reach 80% of our crowdfunding goal, otherwise the entire campaign will be withdrawn. A massive thank you to those already supporting us, including JM who said “Big Tech stands for exclusion and discrimination. This project works towards a creative future...
(Nederlands hieronder) Dear friends, If you haven't already donated , now is your time to create a digital future for all, not just the privileged few, by supporting our Glitching the Future project. With just 10 days left, we still need €5,900 to reach 80% of our crowdfunding goal,...
The South African artist was announced as the winner of the prestigious Börsche Prize at the Photographers’ Gallery in London on May 15. The influential prize, held in partnership with the Deutsche Börsche Photography Foundation, recognises artists and their projects that have made the most significant contribution to international contemporary photography over the past 12 months. Lindokuhle Sobekwa (b. 1995, South Africa) was awarded the Prize for his book I Carry Her Photo with Me , published by...
The South African artist was announced as the winner of the prestigious Börsche Prize at the Photographers’ Gallery in London on May 15. The influential prize, held in partnership with the Deutsche Börsche Photography Foundation, recognises artists and their projects that have made...
Breaking up the family In the past decade, judges in Nigeria have been captured by political power, a situation that has been linked to violent criminality and conflict in the country. However, against great odds, some brave legal minds are fighting to restore the rule of law. When law professor Chidi Anselm Odinkalu started receiving serious death threats, he understood that he had been stepping on powerful toes. Odinkalu (now 57), who, as a former head of the Nigerian Human Rights Commission, had...
Breaking up the family In the past decade, judges in Nigeria have been captured by political power, a situation that has been linked to violent criminality and conflict in the country. However, against great odds, some brave legal minds are fighting to restore the rule of law. When...
On what it means for a stranger to touch your hair in a public space. About six months after you arrive on this island called Australia, you decide to take an afternoon for yourself. Your children are small, and they need you so much, but you have needs too. You are tired. Your partner says, “Go, I will deal with the kids. Pamper yourself.” You want only solitude, which you finally understand as the ultimate luxury. You want to wander and not have anyone ask you for things. You are homesick and...
On what it means for a stranger to touch your hair in a public space. About six months after you arrive on this island called Australia, you decide to take an afternoon for yourself. Your children are small, and they need you so much, but you have needs too. You are tired. Your...
Like the Kantamanto Market, the government continues to suffer from the same recurring fires In a remarkable comeback to serve a final term as president, former Ghanaian leader John Mahama is now promising Ghanaians a “reset” after years in the political wilderness. However, he is sticking to the same roadmap that led his immediate predecessors astray. Delali Adogla-Bessa advocates a new path. The first major news item of 2025 in Ghana was the fire that razed large parts of the Kantamanto market in...
Like the Kantamanto Market, the government continues to suffer from the same recurring fires In a remarkable comeback to serve a final term as president, former Ghanaian leader John Mahama is now promising Ghanaians a “reset” after years in the political wilderness. However, he is...
Wearing a short-sleeved viscose shirt, black trousers and shiny brown shoes, 46-year-old Wyson Bannet looks both freshly groomed and relieved as he walks out of the Blantyre High Court. It’s not that he is free now—far from it. He is on his way back to Chichiri Prison, where he has been since his arrest for a robbery “that resulted in death” in 2007, and he still has 18 of his 36 years to serve. But all that matters, he says, is that his “case is finally concluded.” He then proceeds to tell the...
Wearing a short-sleeved viscose shirt, black trousers and shiny brown shoes, 46-year-old Wyson Bannet looks both freshly groomed and relieved as he walks out of the Blantyre High Court. It’s not that he is free now—far from it. He is on his way back to Chichiri Prison, where he has...
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...
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,...
