The Colour of Madness: ‘The mental health system is not designed with us in mind’

Kiri Kankhwende talks to the editors of a groundbreaking new anthology about BAME mental health @madomasi Read More

Top 15 recently published books by writers and poets from Sub-Saharan Africa

by Samira Sawlani As the festive season begins, so does the enjoyable and/or stressful task of choosing Christmas presents for loved ones. Fret not; be it for the book and poetry lovers in your life or a reward for yourself after all that shopping, here is a list of recently published fiction and poetry by… Read More

Review: “Technologies of the Self” by Haris A. Durrani

by Micah Yongo ‘A person’s identity,’ Lebanese-French author Amin Maalouf once wrote, ‘is like a pattern drawn on a tightly stretched parchment. Touch just one part of it, just one allegiance, and the whole person will react, the whole drum will sound.’ It was these words that came to mind as I finished reading Haris A.… Read More

Under the Udala Trees – a Review

by Claire L. Heuchan I have read a lot of lesbian fiction in my time. For the most part my life, both as a reader and a lesbian woman, has been all the richer for it. However, the vast majority of these books have focussed specifically on love, sex, and relationships between white women –… Read More

Review: “Hotel Arcadia” by Sunny Singh

by Samira Sawlani ‘Her photographs are tombstones for those unnumbered, nameless dead. But she files away the negatives and memory cards and crams the commendations, critiques, prizes in an ancient, creaking Ikea cabinet in the far corner of her studio.’ So begins Sunny Singh’s literary thriller Hotel Arcadia, immediately grasping the attention of the reader… Read More

Foreign Gods Inc – A Review

by Sabo Kpade The friction between white colonists and indigenous Africans has been covered extensively, not least in the works of masters like Ngugi and, much more relatable here, Achebe. So there is a great deal of familiarity with such preoccupations in Foreign Gods Inc. That a modern day gallery in New York specialises in… Read More

Unstitching the Ties that Bind: Ghana Must Go, by Taiye Selasi

by Sabo Kpade Taiye Selasi gets full marks for swimming against the currents of fiction published by African writers, though “writer of African origin” might best describe her. The trace of war found in Ghana Must Go, while being a catalyst for emigration, is reduced to near inconsequence by the varying accomplishments of the family… Read More