A – B – C – D – E – F – G – H – I – J – K – L – M – N – O – P – Q – R – S – T – U – V – W – X – Y – Z
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Abbott, Jack Henri
(1944-2002) Abbott spent most of his life in prison – and died in solitary confinement. His letters from prison to the writer Norman Mailer are collected under the title In the belly of the beast.
Abdourahman, Waberi
Djiboutian poet and writer based in France and the US. He has published numerous short stories and poem collections. His most recent book is Les Etats Unis D’Afrique (The United States of Africa).
Abimbola, Olumide
Abimbola teaches economic anthropology at the Martin-Luther University, Halle/Saale, Germany. He also co-edits the group blog, NigeriansTalk and writes on his personal blog, www.loomnie.com
Abrahams, Mike
A trade unionist and writer based in Johannesburg.
Achmat, Zackie
Filmmaker and leading AIDS activist in South Africa. He is also chairperson of TAC.
Ackermann, Kurt
A travel writer based in Cape Town, Ackermann is a regular contributor to Mind Shift magazine. His recent short story, ‘(The Theme From) Love Story,’ was runner-up for the 2008 Fish One-Page Prize, and was included in the 2008 anthology, Harlem River Blues.
Adesanmi, Pius
Critic and associate Prof of English at Carleton University in Ottawa.
Adesokan, Akin
Adesokan’s books include Roots in the Sky, a novel, and Postcolonial Artists and Global Aesthetics, a critical study.
Adewuyi, Lolade
Journalist, photographer, writer & husband. Chief Editor of Goal.com, Nigeria. Following the Super Eagles’ World Cup campaign in Brazil
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
Nigerian writer and the author of the acclaimed Purple Hibiscus. She won the Orange Prize for her novel, Half of a Yellow Sun.
Agualusa, Jose Eduardo
Angolan novelist and filmmaker. He is the author of eight novels, including Creole, and most recently, The Man Who Sold the Past. He is currently developing a novel and a film script entitled ‘My Father’s Wives’. He lives in Rio de Janeiro, Luanda and Lisbon.
Aigbokhaevbolo, Oris
Aigbokhaevbolo is a writer and culture critic. In 2015, he won the All Africa Music Award for Music/Entertainment Journalism, and was writer in residence on the island of Sylt, Germany in 2016. His writing on film, books and pop music appear in the Africa Report, the Guardian UK and Music in Africa.
Ajao, Derin
Aderinsola Ajao is a Lagos-based Nigerian culture journalist and film critic. Derin currently works with the Goethe-Institute in Lagos.
Akinbiyi, Akinbode
British-born Nigerian photographer. His current work focuses on four major African megalopolises: Cairo, Lagos, Kinshasa, Johannesburg. Akinbiyi curated Urban re:Views, a show featuring works by the Depth of Field collective.
Akinosho, Toyin
Akinosho is a literary critic, a blogger and a member of the Committee for Relevant Art, an art advocacy group based in Lagos.
Akoa, Stephane
Stephane Akoa is a very appreciated Cameroonian political scientist and foreign media for his caustic humor and uncompromising analysis of the actuality Cameroon.
Akomfrah, John
Filmmaker, theorist, and co-founder of the Black Audio Film Collective. Lives and works in London.
Akugizibwe, Paula
Akugizibwe is a writer based in Kigali. She is also a contributing editor of Chimurenga.
Alagbé, Yvan
Graphic novelist and publisher. Authored Negres Jaunes (Yellow Negroes), Personne ne connaît mon nom (Nobody Knows My Name) and most recently Qui a connu le feu (Who Has Known Fire), which features illustrations by Olivier Dramanti. He is also the co-founder of the Paris-based Fremok, one of Europe’s leading publishers of art comics.
Alegi, Peter
Historian, and the author of Laduma! Soccer, Politics and Society in South Africa. He is one of the few (millions) who celebrated Italy’s win at the 2006 World Cup.
Alex, Hélène
Writer and journalist for BBC Africa.
Alcock, Sello
Alcock is a former crime and justice reporter for Mail and Guardian where he was awarded the Vodacom Journalist of the Year regional prize for feature writing. Currently studying towards an LLB degree at Wits University.
Amisi, Serge
Amisi was forcibly recruited as child soldier in 1997, at the age of 11. He grew up in the Congolese army, engaged in war in DR Congo between 1997 and 2001. Now working as a sculptor and puppeteer in France, he recently published a memoir of the war, titled Souvenez-vous de moi, l’enfant de demain : Carnets d’un enfant de la guerre.
Anderson, Ho Che
Named after the Vietnamese and Cuban revolutionaries Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara, Anderson is a jack of all trades, having worked as a commercial illustrator, writer of fiction, radio producer, and newspaper reporter. And like many before him, he has designs on going to Hollywood and becoming a waiter before making it big in the movies. Anderson is primarily known for inflicting the world with the comic books, King – an acclaimed biography of MLK, I Want To Be Your Dog, Wise Son, and most recently, Scream Queen.
Annas, Max
Annas is a critic whose work has appeared in filmdienst and Ecrans d’Afrique. He is currently at work on a book on the Blues Notes, South Africa foremost jazz band in exile during the 1970s.
Ansell, Gwen
Ansell is a journalist, educator and the author of Soweto Blues, Jazz and Politics in South Africa.
Araeen, Rasheed
An artist, writer and the founder of both Third Text (London) and Third Text Asia (Karachi). As an artist, he began his journey in 1953 and continued to pursue art while studying civil engineering in Karachi. After doing some important works in Karachi, seminal to his later pursuits, he left for London in 1964 and has lived there since. In 1965, he pioneered minimalist sculpture – representing perhaps the only Minimalism in Britain. After having been active in various groups supporting liberation struggles, democracy and human rights, he began to write in 1975, and started publishing his own art journals: Black Phoenix (1978), Third Text (1987) and Third Text Asia (2008). He has curated two important exhibitions: ‘The Essential Black Art’ (1987), ‘The Other Story’ (1989); and is a recipient of three honorary doctorates from universities of Southampton, East London and Wolverhampton. He is now directing a project that will revise and produce the most comprehensive and inclusive history of art in postwar Britain.
Aragao, Gabriela Carrilho
Aragao is an architect with an interest in spaces of collective memory, the visual arts and architecture’s potential to heal and disrupt, amongst others. She is currently a teaching assistant at University of Cape Town – School of Architecture, Planning & Geomantics.
Arendse, Graeme aka Ramgee
Progressed from telephone pad doodles to the page six years ago. He has since illustrated for Big Issue, Alternatives, Nose Week and other scoundrels. Currently studies animation and designs for Chimurenga.
Aribisala, Yemisi
Aribisala’s essay collection on Nigerian food & culinary culture is published by Cassava Republic Press Abuja/London. Longthroat Memoirs Soups, Sex & Nigerian Tastebuds tells the story of culture through the belly & digs into the core of the Nigerian psyche. A regular contributor to the Chimurenga Chronic, she has also written on Nigerian feminism, Pentecostal Christianity and Identity.
Ariefdien, Shaheen
Ariefdien is a former member of the pioneering South African hip-hop group Prophets of Da City, whose acclaimed opus, The Age of Truth, was banned by the apartheid government.
Armah, Ayi Kwei
Ayi Kwei Armah is one of Africa’s most celebrated authors and a co-founder of Per Ankh Publishers. His most recent book is Ktm: In the house of Life. He lives in Popenguine, Senegal.
Asfour, Fouad
Asfour is a writer, editor and linguist based between Johannesburg, London and Zurich. He serves as a research associate at the Institute for Art Education at the Zürich University of the Arts.
Atta, Sefi
Writer whose short stories have won prizes from Zoetrope and Red Hen Press. Her debut novel, Everything Good Will Come, won the inaugural Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature.
Araujo, Marcela Mora y
Araujo is a South American and Argentinia football specialist, writer, and broadcaster based in Buenos Aires. Recent adventures include translating Diego Maradona’s autobiography, El Diego, into English, and providing the expertise for the BBC World Cup Stories – Argentina programme, which won the RTS Sport Documentary of the year award for 2006.
Azeb, Sophia
Sophia Azeb is a writer and blogger based in the US. She regularly contributes her thoughts on aspects of Afro-Arab cultures on the blog “Africa Is A Country”.
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Baderoon, Gabeba
Poet and the author of The Dream in the Next Body and A Hundred Silences. She received the DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Poetry 2005. The Museum of Ordinary Life, her short collection of poems and creative non-fiction, was also published in 2005.
Baingana, Doreen
Writer and two time finalist of the Caine Prize. She’s the author of Tropical Fish, a collection of short stories “from Entebbe”. She’s also a columnist for the Ugandan magazine African Woman.
Bakare-Yusuf, Bibi
Bakare-Yusuf is a researcher and co-founder of Cassava Republic Press, a publishing company based in Abuja.
Balkisson, Juanita
Teacher and a writer based in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
Bandele, Biyi
Bandele is a Nigerian playwright and novelist residing in London.
Baraka, Amiri
Iconic poet, revolutionary playwright, and outspoken activist, Amiri Baraka has authored over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history. He is regarded as the Father of the Black Arts Movement.
Barlet, Oliver
Film critic and Editor of the cultural journal Africultures.
Barreiros, Joao
Portugal’s leading sci-fi writer. Lives in Lisbon.
Bartlett, Richard
Critic, translator, editor and founder of The Africa Review of Books.
Basquiat, Jean-Michel
(1960–88) Initially gained notoriety as a graffiti poet and musician. By 1981, at the age of twenty, he had turned from spraying graffiti on the walls of buildings in Lower Manhattan to selling paintings in SoHo galleries, rapidly becoming one of the most accomplished artists of his generation. Astute collectors began buying his art, and his gallery shows sold out. Critics noted the originality of his work, its emotional depth, unique iconography, and formal strengths in color, composition, and drawing. By 1985, he was featured on the cover of The New York Times Magazine as the epitome of the hot, young artist in a booming market. Tragically, Basquiat died of a drug overdose when he was just twenty-seven years old.
Bayat, Asef
Iranian scholar, taught sociology and Middle Eastern studies at American University in Cairo. Currently academic director of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM).
Bekolo, Jean-Pierre Obama
Cameroonian filmmaker and theorist. His films include Les Saignantes and Quartier Mozart. Lives in Paris
Bell, Hugh
Photographer who has been published in the Museum of Modern Art Exhibition catalogue The Family of Man, Jazz Giants and Esquire. He has exhibited at Atmosphere Gallery and Cinque Gallery in SoHo. He is also a fashion and commercial photographer.
Belvett, Naila
(nah-ee-lah) Toronto-based poet and playwright. She appears on two independent CDs: “When the love is not enough” by Debbie Young and “Wordlife: tales of the underground griot”, produced by Anthony Bansfield.
Benfodil, Mustapha
Journalist and novelist. He was voted best Algerian writer by his peers in 2004. His latest book is Les Bavardages du Seul.
Benjamin, Mario
Haitian artist, lives and works in Port au Prince.
Berold, Robert
Author of 3 books of poetry, the latest being Rain Across a Paper Field; editor of the critically acclaimed anthology It All Begins: Poems From Postliberation South Africa and founder of Deep South Publishing.
Bila, Vonani
Bila is founder and editor of the poetry journal Timbila and directs the Timbila Poetry Project. His most recent poetry books include Handsome Jita (2006) and Magicstan Fires (2007).
Bishop, Marlon
Bishop, also known as Marlonious Thunk, is a radio producer, writer, and music journalist whose work has appeared in a number public radio outlets including NPR Music, WNYC News, Afropop Worldwide, and Studio 360, as well as in magazines such as Songlines and Wax Poetics. Based in New York City, he works as a culture producer for the radio station WNYC.
Biwa , Memory
A historian researching the genocide in Namibia during German colonisation and the aftermath in southern Namibia and the Northern Cape . Is a member of a Cape Town based organisation working on making Khoekhoegowab, one of the first languages spoken at the Cape into an official language of the country.
Bolaño, Roberto
Chilean novelist and poet. In 1999 he won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel Los Detectives Salvajes (The Savage Detectives), and in 2008 he was posthumously awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for his novel 2666, considered as the first literary masterpiece of the 21th century.
Boni, Tanella Suzanne
Poet and philosopher from Cote d’Ivoire. Her publications include Une Vie de crabe (A Crab’s Life), Labyrinthe (Labyrinth) and Ma peau est fenêtre d’avenir (My skin is a window on tomorrow).
Boshoff, Willem
Boshoff is a Johannesburg based artist and former head of the Department of Fine Art of the Technikon Witwatersrand (now University of Johannesburg).
Boswall, Karen
Maputo-based filmmaker, cultural journalist and musician. Her most recent film is titled Marrabentando, and she’s currently at work on a film on Cape Town band Freshly Ground. She is developing the film script My Father’s Wives with Jose Eduardo Agualusa.
Botha, Nadine
Botha is a South African poet. Her poems have been published in various magazines in South Africa, including Donga, Litnet, Sweet, New Coin, Ons Kleintjie and Botsotso. She lives in Cape Town where she works as the editor of design for Indaba magazine.
Breakey, Basil
Photographer, best known for his photographs as published in Beyond The Blues – Township Jazz in the ’60’s and ’70’s. Four decades later, this veteran existing-light junkie turns his lens to a younger generation on stage in Cape Town, and recaptures some of his older subjects.
Brewster, Sandra
Jamaican/Canadian artist. When You Kill Us, We Rule is her first stab at comics. She lives and works in Toronto.
Bryant, Jennifer
Writer and editorial intern at Chimurenga.
Bryce, Jane
Professor of African literature, cinema, and creative writing at the University of the West Indies in Barbados.
Burger, Francis
Artist currently completing an MFA at the University of Cape Town. Her work includes drawings, found objects, and sculptures.
Burning Museum
“The Burning Museum(BM) is a collaborative interdisciplinary collective rooted in Cape Town, South Africa. The space which we find ourselves in is one which has been scarred and seared by a historical trajectory of violent exclusions and silences. These histories form the foundation of an elusive and at times omnipotent democracy that occasionally reveals its muscle in the form of laws and by-laws in public space. It is from this historical climate and present context that the work of the Burning Museum engages with themes such as history, identity, space, and structures. We are interested in the seen and unseen, the stories that linger as ghosts on gentrified street corners; in opening up and re-imagining space as potential avenues into the layers of history that are buried within, under, and between .”
Bylex, Pume
Painter based in Kinshasa.
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Card, Gary
Card is one of London’s most talked about talents as an artist, illustrator, and set designer in London
Caulfield, Holden
Holden is a protagonist and narrator of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Since the book’s 1951 publication, he has become an icon for white teenage alienation and rebellion.
Casati, Roberto
Tenured senior researcher with the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). Casati has studied both philosophy and graphic design and both disciplines influence his work.
Cherinet, Loulou Mirjam
Painter, photographer and video artist based in Stockholm and Addis Ababa. Her work has been featured in many international shows, including Africa Remix, Imagining the Book II Biennale (Alexandria), and the Sao Paulo Biennale.
Chou, Isoje Iyi-Eweka
Works in painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, performance and writing and at times uses found objects and literary or creative fiction in her work. Her work derives from the domestic, social, cultural, religious and political and how these challenge the individual’s struggle with place and identity.
Choudhury, Banamallika Mamu
Johannesburg-based writer.
Christie, Renfrew
Writer and professor at the University of the Western Cape. Professor Christie chaired the Board of Directors of the Cape Town anti-apartheid struggle newspaper, South.
Chude-Sokei, Louis
Chude-Sokei teaches at the University of Washington in Seattle. His work includes the award winning The Last Darky (2006), The Sound of Culture (2015) and the forthcoming, Dr. Satan’s Echo Chamber: And Other Essays and a memoir. He is the Editor-In-Chief of The Black Scholar, one of the most renowned journals of black thought in the United States.
Cobbing, Julian
Historian based at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, and formally a photojournalist and member of Afrapix.
Cole, Teju
Has worked as cartoonist, dishwasher, lecturer, gardener and haematology researcher. He also writes and makes photographs. His last book, on Lagos, is titled Every Day is for the Thief.
Coleman, Steve
Alto-saxophonist, composer, producer and writer. Coleman has performed with such legends as Dizzy Gillespie, Abbey Lincoln, Branford Marsalis, and McCoy Tyner. He is a founding member of M-Base Collective, a creative music movement.
Comaroff, Jean
Jean Comaroff is a Bernard E. & Ellen C. Sunny Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago and Honorary Professor of Anthropology at the University of Cape Town. She is an expert on the effects of colonialism on people in Southern Africa. Comaroff also serves as a member of the Editorial Collective of the journal Public Culture. Both Independently and in collaboration with her husband, John L. Comaroff, She has written extensively on colonialism, healing, liberation struggles, and the problems of modernity, based on fieldwork conducted in southern Africa and Great Britain.
Coovadia, Imraan
Born in Durban, Coovadia is currently based in Cape Town where he lectures in the English Department at the University of Cape Town. He is the author of three novels, The Wedding, Green-Eyed Thieves and most recently High Low In-between which won the Sunday Times Fiction Prize in 2010 as well as the University of Johannesburg Prize.
Cousins, Heather
Cousins is a journalist and Managing director of the independent newspaper Skawara News. She is currently based in Cofimvaba in the Eastern Cape where she oversees all operations of the publication.
Croc-e-moses
Cape Town based poet.
Cronin, Jeremy
South African politician, academic and noted poet. He is the author of Even the Dead, and most recently More than Casual Contact.
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D-form
DJ (Forgotten Frquencies), musician and producer (Moodphase5, Tykoons).
Dadié, Bernard
Novelist and poet based in Abidjan. Author of Climbie.
Dahlberg, Goran
Dahlberg is a writer based in Gothenburg where he edits Glanta, a literary journal. He has authored several books, including Invisible Cities.
Damas, Leon Gontran
(1912-78) Guyanese poet who published three collections of poems: Graffiti, Black Label, and Neuralgias; and one of the founders the negritude movement.
Daniel, Trenton
Staff writer for The Miami Herald. He joined The Herald in 2003 after completing his fellowship at the International Reporting Project. Previously, Daniel covered Haiti as a Reuters stringer and Haitian Times staff writer. He began his journalism career as an editorial intern at The Nation.
Darton, Eric
Writer and editor based in New York City.
Dasgupta, Rana
Writer and photographer, and the author of the acclaimed novel Tokyo Cancelled. He lives in Delhi.
Davids, Nadia
Writer and playwright who wrote At her feet is an A.W. Mellon Fellow and is currently completing her PhD in Drama at the University of Cape Town. She has written four plays.
Dawes, Kwame
Dawes is the author of thirteen books of poetry and many books of fiction, non-fiction and drama. Kwame Dawes is a Poet in Residence at the University of South Carolina where he directs the SC Poetry Initiative and the University of South Carolina Arts Institute. Kwame Dawes is the programming director of the Calabash International Literary Festival that takes place each May in Jamaica.
Death, Sarah
Death is a translator, literary scholar, and editor of UK-based journal Swedish Book Review. She has translated novels by Swedish writers of various periods. She currently lives and works in Kent, England.
Depth of Field
A collective of Nigerian photographers: Uchechukwu James Iroh, Emeka Okerere, Amaize Ojeikere. They are based in Lagos.
Derrick, Tracey
Freelance photographer based in Cape Town who focuses on social documentary and works mainly in black and white. Her work is part of the Africa Remix exhibition, curated by Simon Njami.
Desai, Rehad
Filmmaker and a co-founder of the Tri-continent Film Festival.
Dieck, Martin Tom
Dieck studied illustration at the Fachhochschule für Gestaltung in Hamburg, where he still lives and works as a comic artist and illustrator. He made his first comics in Boxer, Strapazin and Jimmy Draht. He is the author of Der Unschuldige Passagier (The Innocent Passenger), and with writer Jens Blazer, Salut Deleuze!, and its sequel Les nouvelles aventures de l’incroyable Orphée (The Return of Deleuze). His latest book is Vortex, a wordless tribute to Hamburg.
Dietrich, Helmut
Dietrich is a member of the Forschungsgesellschaft Flucht und Migration (FFM) (research society on refugees and migration) and works at the Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung.
Dieye, Adji
Dieye is an ItaloSenegalese photographer based in Milan. She graduated in New Technologies for Art at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan. Her work explores different facets of West African societies; the influence of advertising in the construction of a national identity and the syncretic spirituality that remains central to African communities.
Dikeni, Sandile
One of the foremost social commentators in South Africa and a true all-arounder: accomplished poet, journalist, radio producer, activist, performer and communicator. He has published three collections of poems, including Telegraph to the Sky and Guava Juice. He lives in Cape Town.
Diop, Boubacar Boris
Senegalese writer whose most recent work, Murambi: le livre des ossements (Murambi: The Book of Remains), describes a notorious massacre during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. He is also the founder of Sol, the first independent newspaper in Senegal, and the author of several novels, including in the Senegalese language of Wolof.
Dlamini, Jacob
Dlamini is a journalist and columnist for the newspaper Business Day. He is the author of the acclaimed book Native Nostalgia and was a Ruth First fellow at Wits University in 2009.
Dlamini, Sazi
South African ethnomusicologist, jazz musician and composer.
Dongala, Emmnuel
Congolese novelist and chemist based at Simon’s Rock College of Bard. Author of Johnny Mad Dog.
dos Santos, Kiluanji Kia Henda Brito
An artist based in Luanda.
Dosunmu, Andrew
Nigerian fashion photographer and award winning filmmaker; based in New York.
Dread, Zebulon
For over a decade, the man born as Elliot Josephs terrorised Cape Town in his literary avatar, Zebulon Dread. This was only appropriate; he was, after all, the original “cultural terrorist.” His weapon of choice? A zany, unpredictable, hand-drawn, hand-printed journal he made himself, called Hei Voetsek! which he thrust upon willing and unwilling and bewildered people who invariably found themselves becoming patrons of art. His art. Then, some years ago, Zebulon Dread was sacrificed to make way for a long-standing dream: Swami Sitaram. Whether in Bonteheuwel or Observatory, or indeed South Africa and India, this profoundly original thinker, writer, philosopher and rabble-rouser has no parallel.
du Blanc, Blank
(pen name) is a writer and journalist, and occasionally a character is Zadie Smith’s novels. He covers the DRC for his employer.
Dubois, Laurent
Dubois is a Professor of Romance Studies and History at Duke University who is a specialist in the history and culture of France and the Caribbean. His publications include Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804, Soccer Empire: The World Cup and the Future of France, and, most recently, Haiti: The Aftershocks of History. He is a co-director of the “Haiti Lab,” the first humanities laboratory at Duke’s Franklin Humanities Institute, he blogs on soccer and tweets as@soccerpolitics, and he is currently writing a cultural history of the banjo.
Dupray, Virginie
Dupray is a writer and executive director of the Studios Kabako in Kisangani. Her writing is featured regularly in Africultures and African Art. She is the author of two books on Algerian choreographer Nacera Belaza (2003) and Congolese visual artist Kura Shomali (2007).
Dutton, Denis
A philosopher, Dutton is founder and editor of Arts & Letters Daily. He teaches the philosophy of art at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and writes widely on aesthetics. He is editor of the journal Philosophy and Literature and the author of the recently published The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution.
Dyani, Johnny Mbizo
Prolific South African jazz bassist and composer who performed with the Blue Notes and Abdullah Ibrahim among others. His seminal recordings include Song for Biko and Angolian Cry.
Dyer, Geoff
A writer and a critic, his latest book is The Ongoing Moment, on photography.
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Edjabe, Ntone
DJ, critic, founder and editor of Chimurenga. Member of the Heliocentrics scheming duo and co-curator of Pan African Space Station.
Edwards, Brent Hayes
Assistant Professor, English Department, Rutgers University. His book, The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism is a comparative study of the relationships between writers, artists and intellectuals associated with the Harlem Renaissance in the United States and their African and Caribbean counterparts in Paris.
Edoro, Ainehi
Ainehi Edoro publishes Brittle Paper, the virtual space/station where she plays and experiment with ideas on how to reinvent African fiction and literary culture. She is a doctoral student of English at Duke University where she studies African novels, which she believes “are some of the loveliest things ever written”.
El-Tahri, Jihan
Jihan is a journalist and a documentary filmmaker. Her most recent work is a trilogy of films concerned with a single question: what happened to the grand ideas and profound principles that informed the struggle for independence in Africa?
Enahoro, Peter
Enahoro is a Nigerian journalist who wrote under the moniker “Peter Pan” when he worked for the Sunday and Daily Times in the 1960s where he also served as editor. How To Be a Nigerian, first published as a series of columns in the Daily Times, became one of his best-selling books that was updated and republished in 1996.
Eriksson, Pontus
Eriksson is Gothenburg based graphic designer currently working as art director at Bult & Fästteknik AB.
Esteva, Gustavo
Activist and de-professionalized intellectual based in San Pablo Guelatao. He works independently and in conjunction with Mexican, Latin American and international grassroots organisations and networks. His recent books include Grassroots Postmodernism and Escaping Education (both co-authored with M.S. Prakash).
Evaristo, Conceicao
Writer living in Rio de Janeiro. She’s the author of Poncia Vincencio, a novel, and has published short stories and poems.
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Fall, N’gone
Fall is an art curator, publisher and cultural policies consultant. As an editor with the Paris-based publisher Revue Noire, she co-edited the Anthology of African Art: The 20th Century, a survey of art production across the continent. Fall has also curated numerous shows in Europe and the African continent. Focused on themes of African identity, her work seeks to unearth hidden biases of the contemporary art world and expose the West’s appetite for difference in global cultural relations.
Farred, Grant
A lifelong fan of Liverpool Football Club, Farred is the author of What’s My Name? Black Vernacular Intellectuals and Midfielder’s Moment: Coloured Literature and Culture in Contemporary South Africa. He is currently at work on a football book titled Long Distance Love: A Passion for Football.
Faull, Jonathan
Political scientist based at Idasa in Cape Town.
Fignole, Jean Claude
Haitian writer and journalist. Published Had full moon, Quiet paddle and The last drop of man.
Fihla, Buntu
Fihla is a graphic designer and art director by trade, and a creative force by reputation.
Frank Talk Writers
An underground collective of BC activists and contributors of the journal Frank Talk in the 80s.
Fraser, Robert
Critic and historian of ideas. He lectures at the Open University.
Frei, Luca
Multimedia artist based in Sweden.
Freitas, Oscar Memba
Pioneering Congolese photographer, and Franco’s OK Jazz official image-maker, anthologized by Revue Noire.
French, Howard
Currently senior writer for the New York Times. After teaching at the University of Ivory Coast in the early 1980s, he began his journalism career writing about Africa for the Washington Post, Africa News, The Economist and numerous other publications. Since 1986, he has reported for the Times from Central America, the Caribbean, West and Central Africa, Japan, Korea and now China. In 1997, his coverage of the fall of Mobuto Sese Seko won the Overseas Press Club of America’s award for best newspaper interpretation of foreign affairs. French was born in Washington, D.C., and now lives in Shanghai.
Friese, Kai
New Delhi based journalist and editor.
Fusco, Coco
Cuban-American artist and writer whose work examines the relationship between women and society, war, politics, and race. Her book A Field Guide for Female Interrogators examines the role of women in the war on terror.
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Gama, Victor
Angolan composer, theorist, performer, and designer of contemporary musical instruments for new music. And the founder of Pangeia Instrumentos. Lives in Luanda and Lisbon.
Garland, Muthoni
Storyteller from Kenya who lives in Cairo. Garland is working on her first novel. She writes stories to engage and entertain children and adults.
Garuba, Harry
Garuba is an author and professor for African Literature and Postcolonial Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Cape Town. His main research interests are in traditions of African intellectual thought, African and African Diasporic Studies, and World literature.
Gbaffou, Marc
Gbaffou is the founder and chairperson of the Africa Diaspora Forum in Johanneburg.
Gerden, Mara Lee
Gerden is a Swedish author. Her book Ladies (2007) has been translated into French, German, Norwegian, Danish, and Finnish.
Ghosh, Amitav
One of India’s best-known writers, Ghosh’s books include The Circle of Reason, In An Antique Land, The Calcutta Chromosome, The Glass Palace, Incendiary Circumstances, and The Hungry Tide. His most recent novel, Sea of Poppies, is the first volume of the Ibis Trilogy.
Goldblatt, Cullen
Goldblatt lives, writes and translates in New York. Many writers, in particular, African poets Leon Gontran Damas and Patrice Nganang, motivate him. He has translated poems by both. Previously, Cullen lived and studied in Dakar, and hopes to return.
Goldsmith, Paul
Goldsmith is a researcher based in Kenya who specialises in civil society, power relations and conflict in East Africa. His research on the Mombasa Republican Council is widely referenced and his writing has appeared in the East African.
Gomo, Mashingaidze
Gomo is the author of A fine Madness and a former Alouette helicopter gunner in Zimbabwe’s Airforce. In 2007, he retired from the Airforce to pursue a life in the arts.
Gordon, Steve
Music producer based in Cape Town, and a founder of the collective Making Music.
Gqola, Pumla Dineo
Feminist writer whose short stories have been published in anthologies of (South) African writing, and most recently in Tyhume, Gowanus and Postcolonial Text.
Gueye, Babacar
Cultural journalist based in Dakar, and historian of Senegalese hip hop.
Gunst, Laurie
Author of Born Fi Dead, and most recently Off White, a memoir.
Gwala, Mafika
Gwala emerged as a significant writer in the 1970s during his association with the black South African Student Organisation and the Black Community Programmes in Durban. In 1973 he edited Black Review, and his short stories, essays and poems have been published in numerous journals and anthologies. His poetry collections include Jol’iinkomo (1977) and No More Lullabies (1982). He also worked with Liz Gunner and co-edited Musho! Zulu Popular Praises (1991), a literary commentary on Zulu poetry which includes two of his praise poems. A prominent activist and an advocate of Black Consciousness, his poetry rose out of poverty, oppression, physical and mental pain to reclaim dignity and beauty. Writing in the spirit and rhythm of jazz, he creates living music, finding the perfect low tone of oppression and the highs of liberation.
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Håkansson, Gabriella
Håkansson is a Swedish novelist, literary critic and essayist. Her books are renowned for their great psychological originality, complex plots, gothic sense of humour and claustrophobic mapping of the human mind. She features regularly in the Swedish news daily Dagens Nyheter, as well as on national public radio.
Hallett, George
George Hallett is one of South Africa’s most highly respected photographers, with his work having been widely exhibited both in South Africa and many countries abroad. He has also made several documentary films. See his bio here.
Hampton, Kate
A poet and creative non-fiction writer. She is Associate Editor at Jalada and Assistant Editor at Kwani Trust.
Hansen, Linn
Hansen is a poet based in Gothenburg and co-editor of Glanta, a literary journal.
Hardy, Stacy
Hardy is a writer. She is an editor at Chimurenga and a founding member of Black Ghost Books.
Harney, Stefano
Harney is Professor of Strategic Management Education, Singapore Management University and co-founder of the School for Study, an ensemble teaching project. He employs autonimst and post-colonial theory in looking into issues associated with race, work, and social organization. Recent books include The Ends of Managament (co-authored with Tim Edkins)(2013) and The Undercommons: fugitive planning and black study (co-authored with Fred Moten)(2013). Stefano lives and works in Singapore.
Hayes, Terrance
Author of Lighthead (Penguin, 2010), which won the National Book Award for Poetry; Wind in a Box (2006); Hip Logic (2002), which won the 2001 National Poetry Series and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award; and Muscular Music (1999), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award.
Head, Bessie
(1937-86) One of South Africa’s most prominent writers, authored, among others, When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power.
Hecht , Gabrielle
Hecht teaches history at the University of Michigan. Her first book, The Radiance of France: Nuclear Power and National Identity after World War II (1998), won awards from the American Historical Association and the Society for the History of Technology. Her current book project, entitled Uranium from Africa and the Power of Nuclear Things, focuses on Gabon, Madagascar, South Africa, Namibia, and Niger, and examines uranium extraction in these places and the flow of uranium from these places.
Hellio, Eléonore
Hellio grew up in Paris and Geneva. Since July 2013, she has been working with the collective Kongo Astronauts in Kinshasa
Hendricks, Barkley
Painter and portraitist.
Herbstein, Manu
Born and educated in apartheid South Africa, Herbstein has lived and worked in England, Nigeria, India, Zambia and Scotland. Since 1970 he has made his home in Accra. By profession a Civil and Structural Engineer, he has contributed to the design and construction of power stations, bridges, water supply and sewage treatment plants, river works, highways and buildings. He is a Fellow of the British Institution of Structural Engineers and a Fellow of the Ghana Institution of Engineers. He is the author of Ama, a Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, which won the 2002 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book.
Hofmeyr, Isabel
Professor and researcher in the Department of African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand. She is interested in how stories travel and what happens to them when they circulate. She participated in a series of public train lectures on the busy route between Park Station and Soweto in Jozi.
Holiday, Harmony
Holiday, a poet and choreographer, navigates the poetics of identity using musical allusion and metaphor, juxtaposing history, myth and autobiography. The daughter of soul singer/songwriter Jimmy Holiday, her work is infused with song, using verse as melody, metaphors as riffs and syllables as notes to improvise a new language. Her debut collection of poems, Negro League Baseball (2011), won the Fence Books Motherwell Prize. Visit Holiday’s blog here.
Horwitz, Allan Kolski
Lives in Johannesburg where he makes art, politics and hedonism function without creating mind/body overload. He’s a founding member of the Botsotso Jesters, a poetry collective, and the editor of Botsotso, a literary journal.
Hudson, Peter James
Editor of “North: New African Canadian Writing”, a special issue of West Coast Line, and has recent essays in Transition and Prefix Photography. On the occasional Sunday, he can be found in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, waiting for his Jamaican brethren to pass the damn ball.
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Iaconangelo, David
Iaconangelo is a writer and translator whose fiction and essays have been featured and anthologised in the Caribbean Review, Baltimore City Paper, and the Caribbean Writer among others.
Ibrahim, Abdullah
Pianist and teacher, and one of South Africa’s leading composers.
Iduma, Emmanuel
Iduma is a writer and art critic. His novel, The Sound of Things to Come (The Mantle, 2016) was first published in Nigeria as Farad (Parresia, 2012). He lives in New York City where he is on the faculty of the Art Writing graduate program of the School of Visual Arts. He is completing work on A Stranger’s Pose, a book of travel stories and meditations.
Ipadeola, Tade
The Ibadan based legal practitioner and poet who has published three volumes of poetry – A Time of Sign (2000) and The Rain Fardel (2005). His short stories and essays have been published in diverse media. In 2009, he won the Delphic Laurel in Poetry with his poem “Songbird” in Jeju, South Korea. His third volume of poetry which is the Award winning collection of poetry, The Sahara Testaments – a sequence of 1000 quatrains on the nuances of the Sahara, is his latest work.
Ismaïl, Agri
Ismail is an Iraq-based author who writes for Al Jazeera. His work has previously appeared in The White Review, the Outpost, the Swedish art journal Glanta and the anthology Uncommon:Dubai.
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Jackson, Naomi
Brooklyn-based writer and Chimurenga contributor
Jacobs, Sean
Lectures in Communication Studies at the University of Michigan. As freelance journalist, he regularly contributes to the Nation, Mail & Guardian, Africa Confidential and other publications. He co-authored Thabo Mbeki’s World with Richard Garland. He is a contributing editor of Chimurenga and founder of Africa is a Country.
Jamal, Ashraf
Writer, playwright, author of the short story collection The Shades. Currently based in the English Department of University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. Most recently, published Predicaments of Culture in South Africa.
James, Marlon
Born in Kingston, James is a fashion and commercial photographer committed to creating powerful images that will command the viewer’s full attention. He was nominated for the Under 40 Artist of the Year competition at the Mutual Gallery. He currently lives in Trinidad.
Janssen, Jeroen
Janssen created his first comic book, Muzungu, Sluipend Gif while living in Rwanda. The book received the VSB award, Stripdagen Haarlem, during 1998. His other books include Een Nachtegaal in de Stad (written by Pieter van Oudheusden) and Klaarlichte Nacht. Other works have been published in Beeldstorm, Stripburger, Kerozene, Parcifal and Zone 5300. His most recent book is Bakame (2003). He lives and works in Waarschoot.
Jayawardane, M. Neelika
Assistant Professor of English and Global & International Studies at the State University of New York-Oswego. Jayawardane is also a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town. Her current research focuses on the history of mobility, migration, and the role of passports and visa regulations in containing travellers from third world nations.
Jensma, Wopko
South African poet and artist who disappeared in 1993. He authored 3 collections including where white is the colour/where black is the number.
Jobson, Liesl
Writer, photographer and a music teacher at Johannesburg’s Sacred Heart College. Formerly a bassoonist in the now defunct National Orchestra, she also worked as a community journalist, a psychic, a bandswoman in the Soweto Police Band and a media officer and speechwriter for the Provincial Commissioner of the SAPS, Gauteng. Jobson is the author of 100 Papers, a collection of prose poems and flash fiction. She is currently the managing editor of Mad Hatters’ Review, the Johannesburg editor of BOOK Southern Africa and the national editor of Poetry International Web, South Africa.
John, Elnathan
John is a writer and lawyer working in Abuja. He has been published in ZAM, Otis Nebula, Per Contra and Evergreen Review. In 2008, he published Daydreams Etcetera, a collection of short stories
Johnson, Natasha
Graphic designer, ‘will-paint-for-food’ artist and illustrator based in Cape Town.
Joja, Athi Mongezeleli
Joja writes art criticism and other not so savory things
Jones, Keziah
Musician and blufunk pioneer has released Blufunk Is A Fact, African Space Craft and most recently Black Orpheus. Jones also writes poetry, paints and is currently producing a short film titled BLACKSPEEDTEXT.
Jonker, Julian
Freelance writer, DJ and academic. His work has appeared in many reviews and anthologies including Life In The Wires: The C Theory Reader. Lives in Cape Town.
Joseph, Anthony
A poet and musician. He’s the author of two collections, Desafinado and Teragaton, and the album Leggo de Lion with his jazz septet the Spasm band. He’s also the author of the novel The African Origins of UFOs.
Junior, Guy Régis
Junior is a playwright, actor, film maker, novelist, poet and translator based in Port-au-Prince.
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Kaganof, Aryan
South African film-maker, novelist, poet, and artist. His filmworks include Giant Steps (with Lefifi Tladi and Bra Geoff Mphakati) and SMS Sugarman, the first film to be completed using a cellphone camera.
Kahora, Billy
Kahora is the managing Editor of Kwani? His short story ‘Treadmill Love’ was highly commended by the 2007 Caine Prize judges. He has recently edited Kenya Burning, a visual narrative of the Kenya post-elections crisis published by the GoDown Arts Centre and Kwani Trust in March 2009. His book The True Story of David Munyakei, on Kenya’s biggest whistleblower, was released by Kwani Trust in July 2009. He is at work on a novel.
Kakudji
DRC born artist based in Paris.
Kalisa, Simangele
Kalisa is a Johannesburg based photographer and a 2009 Tierney Fellow.
Kalu, Peter
Sci-fi writer and the author of Black Star Rising and most recently Little Jack Horner. He’s also published plays, including Afrogoth and Taxi. He also works as software programmer.
Kamaldien, Yazeed
Freelance journalist and photographer living and working in Cape Town.
Kantai, Parselelo
Kantai is one of Kenya leading investigative journalists, currently based at Africa Report. His fiction writing has been published in several journals, including Kwani? and Chimurenga. His short story “Comrade Lemma and the Black Jerusalem Boys Band” was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing.
Kaplan, Marion
Born in London, Kaplan has worked and lived as a photojournalist and writer in Africa for over twenty years. As a freelancer, he covered a broad range of stories for magazines and newspapers including National Geographic and Time in the US and The Observer in London.
Kayode, Rotimi Fani
(1955-89) One of the most important black photographers of the late twentieth century, exploring in his work themes of racial and sexual identity. Has published several books including Traces of Ecstasy, Black male, white male and Ecstatic Antibodies.
Kaza, Madhu H.
Kaza was born in India and currently writes, translates, makes art, and teaches in New York City.
Keita, Salif
Internationally acclaimed singer and songwriter from Mali. Best known for Mandjou, his tribute to Guinean leader Sekou Toure.
Kelektla Library
Keleketla! Library is an inter-disciplinary, independent library and media arts project. It was established in 2008 to create access to art and media strategies as alternative education models and tools.
Kerbaj, Mazen
Kerbaj was born in 1975 in Beirut and has lived there since. His main activities are comics, painting and music. After a lot of works for different publishers and magazines, he releases some of his more personal works in his Journal 1999 (a daily in comics’ format) in March 2000 that . He self-published eight other books and many short stories since.
Kgositsile, Keorapetse
South African poet and essayist whose writings focus on Pan-African liberation as the fruit of informed heroism and compassionate humanism. Kgositsile’s poetry books include Spirits Unchained (1969), For Melba (1970), My Name is Afrika (1971), The Present Is a Dangerous Place to Live (1974), Places and Bloodstains (1975), Herzspuren (1981; “Traces of the Heart”), and When the Clouds Clear (1990). He also edited The Word Is Here: Poetry from Modern Africa (1973).
Khan, Hassan
An artist based in Cairo. He works with image, sound, text, space and situation.
Khan, Atiyyah
Khan is a writer, researcher and arts journalist based in Cape Town. She has been writing about music and culture in South Africa since 2008. Currently she freelances writing on a range of topics for newspapers and online publications. She is also the co-founder of music collective Future Nostalgia running since 2013 which hosts regular vinyl listening sessions around Cape Town.
Khanna, Rakesh
Khanna is the editor of Blaft Publications, an independent publishing house based in Chennai, India that specializes in translations of Tamil pulp fiction.
Kimani, Martin
A writer and conflict analyst based in Addis Ababa, Kimani previously was Teaching Fellow at the Joint Services Command and Staff College in Shrivenham, and an Associate of the Conflict Security and Development Research Group of King’s College of the University of London. Find him at www.bulletsandhoney.wordpress.com.
Koinange, Wanjiru
Wanjiru is a Kenyan writer and entertainment manager. She has a degree in Journalism and Literature from the United States International University- Nairobi, and is currently pursuing her Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town.
Kona, Bongani
Kona is a writer and freelance journalist. He is a contributing editor of Chimurenga.
Kouèlany, Bill
Kouelany is one of Congo’s most acclaimed writers and artists. She was born in 1965 in Brazzaville, where she lives and works as a writer, stage designer, and visual artist.
Koyana, Vuyo
Co-founder of the Pan African Market in Cape Town.
Kozain, Rustum
Kozain is a poet and freelance editor based in Cape Town. He won the Olive Schreiner Prize in 2007 for This Carting Life and in 2015 for Groundwork. He blogs at www.groundwork.wordpress.com.
Krishen, Pradip
Indian fimmaker and Environmentalist. He directed three groundbreaking films: Massey Sahib, In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones, and Electric Moon.
Kumar, Anant
Indian writer and academic based in Germany.
Kunene, Keith
Rapper and poet. Leader of the Durban based Blackfist of Garvey.
Kuper, Simon
Simon Kuper won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 1994 with his book Football Against the Enemy. He founded and edited Perfect Pitch, and is also the author of Ajax, The Dutch, the War: Football in Europe during the Second World War. He has written for the Observer and Guardian, and is currently a columnist for the Financial Times.
Kwahulé, Koffi
Ivorian comedian and playwright; has most recently published a novel titled Babyface.
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Laferiere, Danny
Laferiere is a Haiti-born writer and journalist based in Montreal.
Lamore, Jean
A writer, on the intersection of culture, politics and science; his last book is AKA. He’s also the editor of the Paris based Mamba.
Lanquetin, Jean-Christophe
Lanquetin is a visual artist, theatre and dance scenographer, teacher (at the HEAR / Strasbourg), and co-founder of the “Urban Scenos” residency project (urbanscenos.org). His works have been shown in many city places and theatres over the world. And also in France and Europe. Visit www.jiceehell.net.
Lebo, Jackie
Lebo is a journalist and writer based in Nairobi. She is currently at work on a book on the history Kenya’s long distance runners.
Le Du, Nathalie
Editor, singer/songwriter, and academic, born and raised in New York City, where she currently resides. She edits childrens books and is the frontwoman of the indie rock band Nectar.
Lemon, Ralph
A world reknowned artist and choregrapher
Lewis, Desiree
Professor at UWC and interested in visuality, black women’s writing, feminist theory and politics…
Lewis, Miles Marshall
Lewis is a critic and writer based in Paris. He has published several books of fiction, including Scars of the Soul Are Why Kids Wear Bandages When They Don’t Have Bruises. He is the founder and editor of the literary journal Bronx Biannual. In 2007, Lewis launched Furthermucker.com, where he blogs regularly about the arts, pop culture, hip-hop culture, and his experiences as a black American expatriate in 21st-century Paris.
Leye, Goddy
Cameroonian artist living and working in Douala. Leye is renowned predominantly for his video work, but also works with painting, installation, performance and drawing.
Lo Liyong, Taban
Sudanese poet and essayist; author of Frantz Fanon’s Uneven Ribs.
Lobe, Henri Kala
Cameroonian journalist, poet, and cultural critic. Lives in Douala and Paris.
Lobo, Ryan
A photographer, documentary filmmaker and writer based in Bangalore, Lobo has made films for National Geographic, Discovery channel and many other networks and his photographs and writing have appeared in numerous publications. Find him at www.ryanlobo.blogspot.com.
Logan, Owen
Logan is a photographer based in Edinburgh. He is a contributing editor to the Variant magazine and a research fellow in socio-economics at the University of Aberdeen.
Louw, Nicolene
Louw studied illustration at the University of Stellenbosch and is a member of the Strip Art Project. She is co-founder and co-editor of Stripshow, and has published widely in South Africa. Her work also appears in the Africa Comics anthology (2003). Louw currently works as a freelance illustrator and designer in Johannesburg.
Lundstrom, Klas
Lundstrom is a journalist who writes on international issues, rainforest, and the excluded space in the global space. Author of numerous books on the Amazon, Swedish gold industry and Latin America’s isolated zones.
Lynx Qualey, Marcia
Lynx Qualey is a Cairo-based writer and freelance cultural journalist for Al Masry Al Youm, World Literature Today, the
Guardian (UK), the Believer, as well as other publications. She blogs at arablit.wordpress.com.
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Mabandu, Percy
Mabandu is a journalist and art critic based in Johannesburg. He is currently with the newspaper City Press.
Machirori, Fungai
Machirori is a Zimbabwean researcher, journalist and photographer. Her areas of interest include pan-Africannism, culture and feminism. She is also a published poet and short story writer. She blogs at www.fungaineni.net
Mafundikwa, Saki
Founder, director of ZIVA a design and new media college in Harare. His book, Afrikan Alphabets was published in 2004. His film, Shungu: The Resilience of a People a feature-length documentary won both at Zanzibar International Film Festival and Kenya International Film Festival both in 2010. He was a speaker at TED2013 in Los Angeles. He lives, works and farms in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Magdy, Basim
A multimedia artist based in Cairo.
Maiofiss, Michel
Photographer and filmmaker who has done photo reportage for magazines such as Actuel and Geo. His photographs are included in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Musee d’Art and Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
Maja-Pearce, Adewale
Maja-Pearce is the author of several books, including Loyalties and Other Stories, In My Father’s Country, How many miles to Babylon?, A Mask Dancing, Who’s Afraid of Wole Soyinka?, From Khaki to Agbada, Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa and Other Essays, A Peculiar Tragedy, and Counting the Cost, as well as the 1998 and 1999 annual reports on human rights violations in Nigeria. He also edited The Heinemann Book of African Poetry in English, Wole Soyinka: An Appraisal, Christopher Okigbo: Collected Poems, The New Gong Book of New Nigerian Short Stories, and Dream Chasers. The House My Father Built, a memoir, will be published later this year.
Majavu, Mandisi
Freelance journalist and news editor at pambazuka.org.
Makhaya, Gertrude
Makhaya is an economist and she is a member of slice mango, an Oxford based writers’ collective.
Makoni, Munyaradzi
A Zimbabwean who for several years after independence worked for Moto magazine. He now a freelance journalist based in Cape Town, and contributed to a recent book Writers: Writing on Conflicts and Wars in Africa.
Malaquais, Dominique
An art historian of contemporary African cultures and Chimurenga associate editor, Malaquais is the author of Burning Down the House: Space, Place and Resistance in the Bamileke Highlands, 1957-1971. Contestations: New Positions on Architecture, Urbanism and Modern Recall is forthcoming. She sits on the editorial board of Politique Africaine.
Malaquais, Jean
(1908-98) (Vladimir Malacki), Citizen of many countries and none, self taught writer and chronicler (of war and the wretched of the earth), and author of Les Javanais and Panete sans visas among others.
Mamdani, Mahmood
A writer and academic, Mamdani most recently published When Victims Become Killers: colonialism, nativism and the genocide in Rwanda, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror, and Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the cold war and the roots of Terror. He is Professor of Government at Columbia University in New York at Columbia University, New York City.
Manaka, Maakomele R.
Maakomele R. Manaka is a poet and performer, exploring the fragmentary attributes of history and global culture using found and made objects, images, text and paint. His anthologies and spoken word albums include If Only“ (2003), Word Sound Power (2008) and In Time (2009). Ward lives and works in Cape Town.
Mancuga, Epictetus, Jr.
Pen name for a writer based in Johannesburg.
Manga, Lionel
Manga is a writer, policritic, theorist, radio host, epistemologist – in no particular order. He has an ongoing collaboration with the French artist Philippe Mouillon and the Laboratoire Sculpture Urbaine/local.contemporain. Together with Mouillon he recently realized the work Bend Skins, a collection of life stories of 500 motorbike-taxi-drivers on the occasion of SUD – Salon Urbain de Douala in December 2007. He also works as a columnist for the newspaper Le Messager in Douala. He makes his home in Douala and would rather die than earn a monthly wage.
Mansaray, Abu Bakarr
Visual artist and speculative engineer based in Freetown.
Maqari, Native
Maqari is a Nigerian graffiti artist and comic illustrator colloborated with artist Keziah Jones on Captain Rugged, a multimedia graphic-novel. He immigrated to Brooklyn as a child, and has lived in Tel-Aviv and Cairo.
Marasligil, Canan
Marasligil is a writer, literary translator, editor and screenwriter based in Amsterdam.
Masondo, Ingrid
Masondo is a photographer and researcher born and mostly raised in Soweto. She has worked in various fields and capacities in the arts sector for more than 10 years. She is currently studying Visual History at the University of Western Cape.
Marechera, Dambudzo
Prolific Zimbabwean poet, playwright, novelist, and short story writer. He described himself as ‘the doppelganger whom, until I appeared, African literature had not yet met.’ His published works include The House of Hunger, Black Sunlight, and Cemetery of the Mind.
März, Moses
März is a contributing editor of Chimurenga.
Masekela, Hugh
World-renowned South African trumpeter and composer.
Mashile, Lebogang
Writer, performer and actor who began writing in 1995. Mashile’s workbook, From Our Mothers Tongues, aims to showcase South African women’s poetry, as well as her own, to shed light on the true lives and struggles of South African women in their own words. Mashile studied law and international relations at Wits University. She published a collection of poems titled Wrapped in a Ribbon of Rhythm (2005).
Mason, John Edwin
An historian and the author of Social Death and Resurection: Slavery and Emancipation in South Africa. Also a musician, he’s a member of the Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra.
Masondo, Ingrid
South African photographer.
Matabane, Khalo
Award-winning filmmaker whose groundbreaking films on South African society have received national and international recognition. His films include Young Lions, Two Decades Still, and Love in a Time of Sickness.
Matine, Jorge
Mozambican poet, writer and journalist born in 1976. His first collection is titled The Vultures of Love. Editor of the Mozambican literary journal Domingo.
Mattera, Don
Poet, musician and community activist. He was awarded the Steve Biko Prize for his autobiography Memory is the Weapon. Mattera has worked as a journalist for The Sunday Times, The Weekly Mail and The Sowetan. He continues to work with street children in the Eldorado community in Johannesburg.
Matthews, James
Cape Town based poet and activist. And the author of Cry Rage.
Mbembe, Achille
Mbembe is a Cameroonian philosopher based in Cape Town, where he is currently teaching at the University of Stellenbosch. He is the author of several books including the acclaimed On the Postcolony, and most recently, Sortir de la grande nuit – Essai sur l’Afrique décolonisée. He is also a contributing editor of the journal Public Culture.
Mbuli, Mzwakhe
One of South Africa’s best known poets and musicians; his album Change Is Pain was banned by the South African government upon its release in 1987.
McCain, Carmen
McCain writes a column for the Weekly Trust in Nigeria, where she is based.
McGill, Mac
One of the leading pen and ink artists in the NYC underground scene, known for his “Afrodelic”, dreamlike pieces. His work has been published by The Progressive Magazine, Tikkun Magazine, Seven Stories Press (“All Things Censored,” written by Mumia Abu-Jamal), and World War 3 Illustrated, among others. He is working on Soul Music, a collection of short stories.
McKenzie, Dave
McKenzie is a Jamaican-born, New York-based artist. His works have been exhibited at the RE DCAT, Los Angeles AN D the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, among others.
Mdledle, Buyaphi
Photographer and teacher based in Johannesburg.
MEDU Arts Ensemble
Cultural organization founded by South African exiles in Gaborone, Botswana. They produced graphic and visual arts, music, theatre, photography and writing. Thami Mnyele, Lentswe Mokgatle, Mongane Wally Sarote, Mandla Langa, Jonas Gwanga, and Gwen Ansell were all members of the Medu Arts Ensemble. Medu is a Sepedi word meaning ‘roots’.
Memela, Sandile
Formerly a journalist, now a publicist, Memela is the author of Flowers of the Nation, a novel.
Messon, Andrea
Journalist, editor and designer based in Johannesburg. Designer of the launch issue of Chimurenga.
Mhlongo, Niq
South African writer and novelist who has been hailed as a spokesperson for the country’s kwaito generation – the so-called born-frees. Wrote a book entitled Way Back Home.
Milla, Michael
Writer, music producer and former editor at the Fader. Milla’s dance drew him to football. He is currently at work on Ghetto Arc, a series of releases on the sound of the global urban underground from Kingston to Baltimore to Johannesburg.
Mingus, Charles
(1922-79) One of the most important figures in twentieth century music; Mingus was a virtuoso bass player, accomplished pianist, bandleader and composer. He toured extensively throughout Europe, Japan, Canada, South America and the United States until the end of 1977. Key works include Pithecanthropus Erectus, Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus and Cumbia & Jazz Fusion.
Mintoogue, Yves
Mintoogue is a journalist with a PhD in political science from Universite Paris – Panthéone-Sorbonne, where he researched topics such as African middle classes and the decolonization of Cameroon.
Mir, Aleksandra
Mir is an artist based in Palermo.
Mngxitama, Andile
A social activist and a doctoral student at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, Mngxitama co-edited Biko Lives, a collection of essays on the legacy of Steve Biko.
Mochama, Tony
Nairobi based journalist and poet.
Moele, Kgebetli
Moele has been a writer since he started high school. He lives in Tshwane and has had three novels published by Kwela Books
Mofokeng, Reikana
Poet based in Johannesburg.
Mofokeng, Santu
South African photographer. He has had various exhibitions around the world, including Chasing Shadows, The black photo album – Johannesburg, 1890-1950, l’Atelier de Visu, Marseille; Rumours/The Bloemhof Portfolio, Market Gallery, Johannesburg; Like Shifting Sand, Market Gallery, Johannesburg.
Mohaiemen, Naeem
Filmmaker and digital-media activist specializing in political Islam. He is the director of VISIBLE, a Collective of Muslim and Other Artists, which created DISAPPEARED IN AMERICA, a film trilogy and multimedia installation that humanizes the faces of “disappeared” Muslims since 9/11. Mohaiemen is also an interdisciplinary artist exploring historical markers and failed utopia. His work is found at www.shobak.org.
Mohamed, Lamyne
Mohamed is a visual artist born in Cameroon. His photographic work seeks to question the issues of a sustainable world, through dress codes and accessories. It produces textiles and objects he uses in photography and performance.
Moholo, Louis
Self-taught South African jazz drummer, Moholo is a co-founder of the revered band Blue Notes and later the London based Botherhood of Breath. He often featured in the Dedication Orchestra and is a member of the London Improvisors Orchestra. He lives in Cape Town.
Molebo, Christian Botale
Molebo is a performance artist and storyteller based in Kinshasa.
Monaheng, Tseliso
Writer. The end! Writer. The end!
Mongo-Mboussa, Boniface
Mongo- Mboussa is a Congolese-born, Paris-based literary critic. He is the author of Desir D’ Afrique. He is also the literary editor of journal Africultures.
Mora y Araujo, Marcella
Has been translating Argentinean and South American futbol cultures for English readers for over 15 years. She also translated El Diego, The Man’s autobiography. She co-edited Perfect Pitch with Kuper. She currently writes for the Guardian, and routinely infuriates bloggers at http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport.
Morojele, Sechaba
Filmmaker and actor based in Johannesburg.
Moses, Serubiri
Moses is a poet, photographer, critic and violinist living in Kampala. His poetry has appeared in Kwani? and photographs in Saraba.
Mosley, Walter
Prominent African-American crime novelist best known for his Easy Rawlins detective series. Mosley also writes short stories and non-fiction.
Motana, Masello
Singer, poet, actress and writer. Her poems have been published in several collections, including Timbila. New Horizons: An Anthology of African Verse. Motana has also presented her poetry at a number of leading events in South Africa. These include the national hip-hop poetry festival, Urban Voices (2002), the Oppikoppi Festival (2002) and the World Summit Festival (2002).
Moten, Fred
Fred Moten lives in Durham, North Carolina, where he teaches English and African and African American Studies at Duke University. He works at the intersection of performance, poetry and critical theory, authoring several books such as Arkansas (Pressed Wafer Press, 2000), In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (University of Minnesota Press, 2003), and I ran from it but was still in it. (Cusp Books, 2007).
Mouanda, Baudouin
A photographer based in Brazaville. His works have been featured at the Duta, Douala’s bienale of photography.
Mqombothi, Dudumalingani
Mqombothi is a writer, filmmaker, and photographer. Born in the Zikhovane village in the former Transkei, he contributes to The Chronic, Mail and Guardian, Africa is a Country, and This is Africa.
Mphakati, Geoff
A giant in the South African music and arts scene, Bra Geoff (as he was often called) managed the groups Malombo and Dashiki, founded the Jazz Appreciation Society, and established the Association for the Advancement of Creative Artists. He passed during the filming of his first documentary, Giant Steps.
Mthethwa, Zwelethu
Artist based in Cape Town. Mthethwa has had over 35 solo exhibitions in galleries and museums in the United States, Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Switzerland and South Africa. Best known for his large-format color photography, he also works in pastels and paint.
Mudede, Charles Tonderai
Zimbabwean journalist and scriptwriter who has lived in Seattle since 1991, where he edits The Stranger. His fiction has appeared in Seattle Review and Monkey Puzzle, and his non-fiction has appeared in Nest Magazine, Village Voice, C Theory, and Radical Urban Theory. Mudede is a founding member of the Seattle Research Institute.
Murthy, Bharath
Murthy is a teacher, filmmaker and comics author. He is finishing his début book-length comic, The Vanished Path, while teaching film direction at the Film and TV Institute of India, Pune. In 2009 he founded Comix.India, an anthology comics magazine.
Muyanga, Neo
Muyanga is a songwriter, composer and one of South Africa’s most acclaimed musical directors, most recently for the Royal Shakesperare Company’s production of The Tempest. He is also a founder of Blk Sonshine, and co-curator of the Pan African Space Station (www.panafricanspacestation.org.za), a music and radio project in Cape Town.
Muzanenhamo, Togara
Zimbabwean poet and journalist. His debut collection of poetry, Spirit Brides, was released in 2006.
Mwaluko, Nick
Mwaluko is a Tanzania-born writer whose fiction, poetry and plays focus on LGBTAI issues. His feature stories have been published in the Washington Times and Huffington Post and his play Waafrika, which premièred to critical acclaim in New York, was recently published by UnCUT/VOICES Press.
Mwanza, Fiston Nasser
DR Congo writer, poet, novelist and playwright.
Mwesigire, Bwesigye bwa
Mwesigire is a Ugandan writer and academic. He is currently an African Leadership Centre (ALC) Fellow attached to the University of Cape Town. His work has appeared in Chimurenga Chronic, This is Africa, Africa in Words, African Arguments, Music and Literature, Brittle Paper, Saraba Magazine, Kalahari Review among others.
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Naffis-Sahely, André
Naffis-Sahely is a literary translator from French and Italian. His most recent publications include The Rule of Barbarism and The Bottom of the Jar by Abdellatif Laâbi (2013) and The Last Days of Stefan Zweig by Laurent Seksik (2013).
Naidoo, Kesivan
A drummer, Naidoo has performed with pianist Hotep Galeta, trumpeter Marcus Wyatt, and pianists Jack Van Poll and Bheki Mseleku. ‘Kes’ graduated with a BA Music (Jazz Performance & Arrangement) from the UCT College of Music in 2000, and has won a SAMRO scholarship to further his studies abroad.
Napier, Julia
Napier played college soccer in the US. She is currently at work on her first novel, about a kidnapping in Buenos Aires where she lives – Boca! Boca! Her football stories have previously been published in Perfect Pitch.
Narayanan, Vivek
A poet, and the author of Universal Beach, Narayanan also works at Sarai-CSDS in Civil Lines, Delhi, and is Consulting Editor of Almost Island, a literary journal.
Naude, Francois
Designer based in Cape Town.
Ndebele, Njabulo
Writer and academic. He is the author of The Cry of Winnie Mandela, Fools and Other Stories and a collection of essays titled Rediscovery of the Ordinary.
Neal, Mark Anthony
The author of four books, What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture, Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic, Songs in the Keys of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation and most recently, New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity. Neal is also the co-editor (with Murray Forman) of That’s the Joint! The Hip-Hop Studies Reader.
Nerf, Christian
Born in 1970 in Johannesburg, South Africa, Christian Nerf is a founding member of the artists’ group Blow-up g_ds. He is currently working as part of the City + Suburban studio in Johannesburg.
Neyrat, Cyril
Film critic at Cahiers du Cinema, and the editor of Vertigo magazine, Neyrat has contributed to the collection Le Cinema et L’Essai. He also selects and programs at the Marseilles International Film Festival.
Nganang, Patrice
Cameroonian writer, poet and essayist, turned nine the year Union de Douala won the African Champions League. He is the author of an “underdog” trilogy: La Promesse des Fleurs; Temps de Chien; and La Joie de Vivre. He won the Grand prix littéraire de l’Afrique noire for Temps de Chien (Dog Days).
Ngozi, Winston Mankunku
Acclaimed tenor and soprano saxophonist whose 1968 debut, Yakhal’Inkomo, is one of the most important South African jazz recordings of all time. Mankunku refused to go into exile, also refusing several invitations to tour internationally by the likes of Duke Ellington — because his music was deeply connected to South Africa and its people. He was both an unschooled musician and a un-official professor emeritus of jazz.
Niorthe, Philippe
French photographer.
Nkabinde, Concord
Bass player, has worked with Abdullah Ibrahim, Zim Ngqawana, Hugh Masekela, Ray Phiri and many more.
Nkosi, Lindokuhle
Nkosi is a writer based in Cape Town.
Nkutha, Lindiwe
Author of short stories and poems – published in various anthologies and on the net. She is also working on her first novel. When the spirit moves her, she makes photographs and short films. “Theoretically” she supports Kaizer Chiefs. But she mostly enjoys watching people watch football. She lives in Johannesburg.
Noble, Alex
Cape Town-based graphic designer and architect.
Noriega, David
writer and translator living in Brooklyn, New York.
Novosseloff, Alexandra
Novosseloff is a political scientist, and the author of the book Des murs entre les homes.
Nowicki, Andrzej
A visual artist. He works primarily in painting and drawing media. “Haiti” is his first exploration of the comic medium.
Ntsaluba, Gcina
Ntsaluba is a Johannesburg based investigative journalist. He won “CNN award” for his story “Slumlords” published in Daily Dispatch in 2010.
Nwankwo, Chimalum
A poet, Nwankwo has won the Association of Nigerian Authors Poetry Prize twice in 1988 with Toward the Aerial Zone and in 2002 with The Womb In The Heart and Other Poems.
Nxumalo, Khulile
Author of Ten Flapping Elbows, Mama, a collection of poems. Researcher, writer, and film director, Nxumalo worked on a documentary as part of the Project 10 series, ‘Nabantwa bam’. Soweto-born Nxumalo has studied at the Universities of Durban and Cape Town, as well as in Swaziland.
Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth
Born in Nigeria, Nzewi is a specialist in modern and contemporary African and African Diaspora arts. He received his Ph.D. in Art History at Emory University and is the Curator of African Art at The Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College.
Nzolo, Cédrick
Born to drc ,(ex zare ) in 1985 , Nzolo works in live in kinshasa, capitale of DRC. His artwork is at same moment photographik and design, and he makes projects within the of context where he lives.
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oa Magogodi, Kgafela
teaches at the Wits School of Arts, literature, film studies in Africa and the diaspora. Columnist for Ymagazine, www.kgafela.com. Forthcoming, Dread Scribbles (book of essays/articles) and I Mike What I Like, poetry cd and film.
oa Mahabane, Itumeleng
Former editor of Y-Mag; has been a TV listing journalist and a scriptwriter. Now a publicist. He lives in Johannesburg.
Ofeimun, Odia
Poet, critic and former president of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA). He is the author of the acclaimed collection The Poet Lied.
Oguibe, Olu
Poet, artist, curator and critic, Oguibe currently teaches at the University of Connecticut as an Associate Professor of art and African American studies. Co-founded Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art. Most recently published The Culture Game.
Ogunlesi, Tolu
Ogunlesi is an award –winning Nigerian writer whose fiction and poetry have been published in The London Magazine,Wasafiri, Farafina, PEN Anthology of New Nigerian Writing, Litro, Brand, Orbis, Nano2ales, Stimulus Respond, Sable, Magma, Stanford’s Black Arts Quarterly andWorld Literature Today, among others.
Ojaide, Tanure
Renowned Nigerian poet who has also published two books of literary criticism, Poetic Imagination in Black Africa: Essays on African Poetry and The Poetry of Wole Soyinka, and a memoir, Great Boys: An African Childhood.
Okewole, Niran
Okewole’s poems have been published in magazines like Mindfire Review, Farafina, African Writing, and many more. He won the 2003 the Okewole MUSON Festival Poetry Prize and the 2008 Sawubona Musicjam / London Festival Poetry Prize.
Okogu, Efe
Nigerian writer currently living, working, studying and traveling in Asia, his story The Train Game was published in Diaspora City, an anthology of new writing about London.
Okonkwo, Ogoo Rudolf
New York based freelance writer, and the founder of Iroko Productions. His first book, Children of A Retired God, is forthcoming.
Okonta, Ike
Nigerian writer and activist and Okonta was recently shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Literature. A founding member of Tempo, one of the most controversial Nigerian news magazines during the Abacha years, he co-authored with Oronta Douglas, Where Vultures Feast: Shell, Human rights and Big Oil.
Okorafor-Mbachu, Nnedi
A Nigerian scientist and sc-fi author based in the US. She’s the author of Zarah the Windseeker.
Okpako, Branwen Kiemute
Nigerian filmmaker based in Berlin. Her latest film is Valley of the Innocent.
Olaniyan, Tejumola
Olaniyan is a writer and professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He’s interested in the Africa and the African diaspora, post-colonialism, and drama.
Omoniyi, Tope
Poet and a senior lecturer in English and Modern Language at the University of Surrey. His most recent collection is titled Farting Presidents and Other Poems.
Opara, Adolphus
Opara is a freelance documentary photographer based in Lagos. He Recently exhibited his work at the Tate Museum in London.
Orozco, Gaspar
Orozco, Gaspar Orozco was born in Chihuahua, Mexico. He has had several books of poetry published and was part of the punk rock group, Revolución X. He has also translated poetry into Spanish from English and Chinese.
Oscar G
Johannesburg-based photographer.
Oshun, Folakunle
Oshun is an artist based in Lagos, Nigeria. His artistic practice explores the dynamism of contemporary nomadic life which he proposes as a parallel to current migratory issues. His work entails a process based protocol which begins with city mapping – making use of video-sensory apparatus in motion to acquire data which is interpreted into sculptural forms.
Osondu, E.C.
Nigerian writer known for his short stories. His story ‘Waiting’ won the 2009 Caine Prize, for which he had been a finalist in 2007. Osondu’s stories have been published in Agni, Guernica, Vice, Fiction, and The Atlantic.
Ouologuem, Yambo
Malian writer, whose most famous novel, Le Devoir de violence, (Bound to Violence), published in 1968, is a satirical portrayal of African spiritual values. Subsequently Ouologuem published Lettre ouverte à la France nègre, a satirical pamphlet which criticised paternalistic French liberals and was addressed to General de Gaulle. His other works include Les Mille et une bibles du sexe, described as “frankly pornographic” and published under the pseudonym Utto Rodolph. Several of Ouologuem’s poems have appeared in Nouvelle somme.
Owuor, Yvonne Adhiambo
Winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2003 for her story Weight of Whispers, Owuor is the former Executive Director of the Zanzibar International Film Festival.
Owusu-Ankoma, Kwesi
Ghanaian painter based in Germany.
O’Toole, Sean
A Cape Town based journalist and writer, O’Toole is currently editor of Art South Africa, and writes a weekly column on photography for the Sunday Times. His journalism has been widely published, including Adbusters, Art in America, Blueprint, BBC Focus on Africa, Colors, Creative Review, Eye, ID, Kyoto Journal, amongst others. The recipient of the 2006 HSBC/SA PEN Literary Award, he published a collection of short stories titled The Marquis of Mooikloof.
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Parks, Gordon
(1912-2006) A photographer, filmmaker, writer and musician, Parks was one of 20th century most important artists.
Patel, Shailja
Patel’s a Kenyan poet, playwright, theatre artist and political activist. Her one-woman show, ‘Migritude,’ has toured globally, and was published in 2008 as a bilingual (Italian-English) edition by Lietocolle. Visit her at www.shailja.com.
Pavlic, Ed
Poet and music critic. His latest book is But Here Are Small Clear Refractions.
Paul, Annie
Paul is a writer currently based in Kingston. She is an Associate Editor of Small Axe and one of the founding editors of the Caribean Review of Books. She blogs at http://anniepaulactivevoice.blogspot.com/
Pensa, Iolanda
Pensa is an art critic, researcher and cultural producer. She is scientific director of WikiAfrica for lettera27 Foundation in Milan. Founding and board member of iStrike Foundation, she worked as a freelance consultant for Doual’art and the Africa Centre. Her writing regularly appears in the magazine Domus.
Peffer, John
Associate Professor of Contemporary / Nonwestern Art History at Ramapo College of New Jersey.
Phakathi, Dumisane
Award-winning filmmaker, journalist, and tv producer. His film credits include “Wa n’wina” and “Don’t F*** With Me, I Have 51 Brothers and Sisters”.
Pienaar, Hans
Author of Die Derde Oorlog teen Mapoch, an alternative history of apartheid, looking at all the secret societies and structures involved. Die Taal van Voëls is a collection of poetry, and in 1987, he published some short stories, Die Lewe Ondergronds. In 1988 Pienaar edited Forces Favourites, a collection of stories against conscription. He is currently working on a second poetry collection, trying to get three novels published, short stories, a fourth novel, trying to get two Afrikaans plays performed. Wrote the plays Ching Chong Che, and Three Dozen Roses.
Pieterse, Edgar
Writer, researcher and founder of the Isandla Institute in Cape Town. Authored the acclaimed City Futures. Co-editor of African Cities Reader.
Pillay, Pravasan
A poet, filmmaker and the founder of Tearoom Books, an independent press based in Durban. Glumlazi, his debut, is a collection of short poems, the majority of which run no-more than two lines.
Pillay, Suren
Pillay is currently a senior researcher at the Center for Humanities Research at the University of Western Cape. His research focuses on the constitution and reconstitution of the ‘Political’ and Justice in Africa; and the politics of knowledge production in postcolonial societies. He is also an editor of Social Dynamics, and a frequent contributor to South African newspapers.
Place, Rodney
Place is a multi-media artist and writer living and working in Johannesburg and Warsaw. His work focuses largely on art and urbanism, whether as satirical commentary, activism, or permanent installation.
Plisson, Vincent
Plisson is a French graphic designer. Has been contributing to Chimurenga since 2010, providing editorial design direction, illustration and infographics. Currently based in France. My work can be found on www.vnctplsn.com
Prabhala, Achal
A journalist and activist living in Bangalore, Prabhala’s writing has appeared in Transition, Bidoun and Outlook India, and most recently in Johannesburg, The Elusive Metropolis, a collection of essays about the city. He is also editor of Civil Lines, a literary journal out of Delhi, and contributing editor of Chimurenga.
Press, Karen
Press is a poet, writer and editor based in Cape Town. She’s published eight collections of poetry, a film script, short stories as well as science, mathematics, English and economics textbooks.
Purohit, Sudarshan
Purohit is a software-engineer, writer, and translator based in Bangalore.
Putter, Andrew
Putter is an artist in Cape Town.
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Qualey, Marcia Lynx
Qualey is a Cairo-based writer and freelance cultural journalist for Al Masry Al Youm, World Literature Today, the Guardian UK, the Believer, as well as other publications. She blogs at http://arablit.wordpress.com.
Queso, Jamon y
Ramón Esono Ebolé, who publishes his comics under the pseudonym Jamón y Queso. He has exhibited his art around the world, in countries including Brazil, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea (born and raised), Mozambique, Paraguay, and the United States. His first book-length comic is Obi’s Nightmare. Ebolé emigrated to Paraguay in 2011, where he is active as a political cartoonist and commentator in favor of a democratic Equatorial Guinea.
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Raboteau, Emily
The author of the novel The Professor’s Daughter, Raboteau is at work on a travel book, Searching for Zion, largely about Black Zionist movements and the African diasporic search for home.
Raditlhalo, Sam
Raditlhalo is a senior lecturer in the Department of English Language & Literature at the University of Cape Town. He currently researches on auto/biographies from the fringes of society.
Raegon, Gael
Journalist and poet. She is contributing editor of Chimurenga.
Rage, Jimmy
a.k.a Femi Dawkings a Jamaican artist, poet and musician living and working in Amsterdam. Rage is also contributing artist for the Paris based magazine Clam.
Ramallah Underground
A music and art collective based in Ramallah. Members include Amer Shomali, Mohanad and Jana.
Ramgee aka Graeme Arendse
see Arendse
Rampolokeng, Lesego
Poet and playwright. Rampolokeng has published three volumes of poetry, including the acclaimed Horns for Hondo and the novellas Whiteheart and Blackheart. He has also published many plays, including Fanon’s Children.
Rantekoa, Liepollo
Rantekoa is a bibliophilic, writer and researcher. She hails from Lesotho and is currently employed at Chimurenga.
Raqs Media Collective
The Collective has been variously described as artists, media practitioners, curators, researchers, editors and catalysts of cultural processes. Their work, which has been exhibited widely in major international spaces and events, locates them squarely along the intersections of contemporary art, historical enquiry, philosophical speculation, research and theory – often taking the form of installations, online and offline media objects, performances and encounters. They live and work in Delhi, based at Sarai, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, an initiative they co-founded in 2000. They are members of the editorial collective of the Sarai Reader series.
Rasheed, Kameelah
Writer, teacher, self-taught documentary photographer, graphic designer, and city-planning commissioner. The former U.S. Amy Biehl Fulbright Scholar to Johannesburg, South Africa currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. Find her work at www.kameelahwrites.com.
Rassool, Ciraj
Rassool is an Associate Professor, Department of History and Acting Co-Director, Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape. He is also the author of several books, including Skeletons in the Cupboard: South African Museums and the Trade in Human Remains.
Ratele, Kopano
Writer and academic based in Pretoria.
Ray, Sandeep
Documentary filmmaker and post- production editor living in Boston.
Rekacewicz, Philippe
A cartographer and the co-author of Atlas mondial de l’eau, une pénurie annoncée (2003), Rekacewicz draws maps for Le Monde diplomatique and Atlas der Globalisierung.
Rickards, Peter Dean
A photographer and writer, and the founder of First Magazine, a fashion and art magazine based in Kingston.
Rhodes-Pitts, Sharifa
Rhodes-Pitts is a writer living between New York, Paris and New Orleans. Her book Harlem is Nowhere, is part of a trilogy on African American Utopia.
Roberts, Ronald Suresh
A writer based in Cape Town, Roberts is the author of Clarence Thomas and the Tough Love Crowd (1995), Reconciliation Through Truth (with Kader and Louise Asmal, 1996); No Cold Kitchen: A Biography of Nadine Gordimer (2005); and Fit to Govern: The Native Intelligence of Thabo Mbeki (2007).
Robinson, Knox
is a writer, music producer and former editor at the Fader. Milla’s dance drew him to football. He currently at work on Ghetto Arc, a series of releases on the sound of global urban underground from Kingston to Baltimore to Johannesburg. He recently co-authored The African Game with Nigerian photographer and filmmaker Andrew Dosunmu.
Rosa-Mendes, Pedro
Lisbon-based freelance journalist and writer. His first book Bay of Tigers has been translated into thirteen languages.
Rose, Tracey
South African artist who lives and works in Johannesburg; her work has been featured in exhibitions around the world.
Ross, Elliot
Elliot Ross is a doctoral student in literature at Columbia University. His writing has appeared in Guernica, Columbia Journalism Review and the late Nigerian newspaper, Next. He is a regular contributor to Africa is A Country.
Roussouw, Henk
Journalist. Authored An African Tale: First Hell, Then College.
Roy, Arundhati
Novelist and activist. Author of the acclaimed novel, The God of Small Things. Her non-fiction books include The Cost of Living and Power Politics.
Rozzano, Real
DJ and cultural entrepreneur based in Cape Town.
Rux, Carl Hancock
Poet, musician and novelist based in Brooklyn. His latest book is Asphalt.
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Said, Abdulkadir Ahmed
Award winning Somali filmmaker based in Cape Town. He’s the founding director of the African Cinema.
Salo, Elaine
An academic based at the University of Cape town; specialising in gender issues.
Saxena, J.S.
Having featured in the Indian Committee for Cultural Freedom’s Quest (Issue 65, 1970), Saxena was last listed as being ‘a Reader in English [at the] University of Jodhpur.’ Quest’s founding editor was the celebrated poet Nissim Ezekiel. The publication existed in the same time – and within the same political space – as Transition in Uganda and Encounter in the UK before falling victim indirectly to Indira Ghandi’s brutal imposition of a state of emergency in the country (1975-1977).
Schwartz, Nicola
Photographer and founder of the London-based Pocko Editions.
Scott, Dread
Artist based in New York, works in a variety of media including installation, photography, sculpture, and screenprinting. His work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Robert Miller Gallery in New York and at DeBeyerd Center for Contemporary Art in the Netherlands.
Searle, Berni
Berni Searle is a Cape Town-based artist. Best known for producing film, video and lens-based media installations, her work references ongoing explorations around history, memory and heritage. Recent group exhibitions include Pictures by Women at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2011) and Figures and Fictions at the V&A Museum in London (2011).
Sebbar, Leila
Algerian writer based in Paris. Her latest book is Femmes au Bain.
Seethal, Rucera
Designer and art director of Chimurenga.
Seidman, Judy
Artist, writer, and activist. Seidman worked with the Medu Arts Ensemble in Botswana from 1981 to 1985. In 2008 she released Red on Black: The Story of the South African Poster Movement.
Sekyiamah, Nana Darkoa
Sekyiamah is a Ghanaian blogger and writer. She is also the Communications Specialist for the African Women’s Development Fund.
Sekou, Lasana
The author of 11 books of poetry, monologues, and short stories. He is the leading writer of St. Martin and is considered one of the prolific Caribbean poets of his generation. His newest collection is 37 Poems, published in 2005.
Sen, Orijit
Graphic designer and comics creator based in New Delhi. His first graphic novel, The River of Stories was published in 1994. He also runs People Tree, a crafts, books and design shop in New Delhi. Sen also consults on museum and exhibition design projects. His current projects include a second graphic novel and his first animation film.
Servant, Jean-Christophe
Servant is a freelance journalist who specialized on music for 10 years before he turned to international politics. He is currently reporting on Anglophone Africa for magazines and newspapers such as Le Monde Diplomatique, Liberation, Nord Sud Export, and the website Worldpress.org.
Sey, James
Writer, critic and occasional multimedia conceptualist based in Johannesburg.
Shagaya, Simdul
At work on his debut collection of poems, provisionally titled between the Moon and pride. Shagaya lives between Abuja, Lagos and Johannesburg.
Shaheen the sheriff
DJ, producer, broadcaster and founder of the group Prophets of da City.
Sharzhad
Design and publishing collective based in Switzerland.
Shivji, Issa
Professor of Law, director of the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law at the University of Dar es Salaam.
Shoneyin, Lola
Shoneyin is poet, writer currently living in Abuja, where she works as English and drama teacher and deputy principal at a secondary school. Her book The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives was shortlisted for the 2011 Orange Prize.
Shook, David
Shook is a poet, filmmaker, and translator based in Los Angeles. His recent translation projects include published work by Mario Bellatin, Tedi López Mills and Vasily Kamensky and others.
Shukri, Ishtiyaq
South African writer based in London and Ramallah, the author of The Silent Minaret, a book about the alienation, disillusionment, anger and loss caused by the “war on terror.” He was educated in Cape Town and Johannesburg and studied South Asian literature at the School of Oriental African Studies (SOAS), London.
Silva, Bisi
Silva is an independent Nigerian contemporary art curator currently based in Lagos and London. She is also the founder/director of Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos.
Singh, Nikhil
Artist, writer and musician. He has released two albums, formed a theatre group, written the soundtrack to two films, done stage design and murals for Miss Kitten, serialised a graphic novel with Sturgeon White Moss and staged two solo and several joint exhibitions of his artwork. His mutant alter ego is also the front man for the pop punk outfit, The Wild Eyes. He lives and works in Cape Town.
Smith, Gail
Journalist, and the editor of City Press Pulse, the arts and lifestyle section of City Press, a Johannesburg based newspaper.
Smith, Kyla
Violinist of the band Freshlyground. Lives in Cape Town
Sondiyazi, L. Unathi
Sondiyazi is a reluctant nomad, a read-artist & an unwriter working in Cape Town. Follow some of his exploits on www.un8speaks.blogspot.com
Soske, Jon
Soske is a Post Doctoral Research Fellow at the Wits Centre for India Studies in Africa. He is working on a biographical project on Dr. Abu Baker “Hurley” Asvat, an AZAPO cadre and leader in non-racial sport who operated a clinic in Soweto for close to twenty years.
Sousa, Adriano
Journalist by training and a publicist by un-training. In between, he has published three collections of poems. But in truth, he would have preferred to be a football player. He lives in Rio Grande.
Stanley, Ransome
Munich-based artist whose work has been presented in numerous exhibitions. He recently showed his work in the large exhibition project, Black Paris – Black Brussels.
Sterling, Bruce
American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre. He is the founder of the Dead Media Project.
Suede
Brooklyn-based photographer.
Sumegne, Joseph Francis
Cameroonian artist best known for his public art, in particular the sculpture La Nouvelle Liberte in Douala.
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Tate, Greg
Cultural critic for The Village Voice, is the author of Flyboy in the Buttermilk and contributes regularly to publications such as Rolling Stone, VIBE, and The New York Times. In addition, he helped found the Black Rock Coalition, produced two albums on his own label, and composed a libretto that was performed at the Apollo Theater. He lives in New York City.
Taylor, Elizabeth Liz
Pen name for a Johannesburg-based writer.
Tchebwa, Manda
Congolese cultural journalist and artistic director of MASA in 2005.
Tchokothe, Rémi Armand
Rémi Armand Tchokothe is lecturer in African Studies at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. His research interests include Afrophone literatures, readership research and promotion, intercultural translation, African urban youth languages and literature and development. He is the author of Transgression in Swahili Narrative Fiction and its
Reception (2014) and the translator from the French into English of The Swahili Novel: Challenging the Idea of ‘Minor Literature’ (2013).
Terry, Olufemi
Terry has published fiction, poetry, and nonfiction in several publications, among them Chimurenga and Guernica. His short story “Stickfighting Days” won the 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing. He lives in south-west Germany and is at work on a novel.
The Speculative Archive
Julia Meltzer and David Thorne
Thomas, Andy
Thomas is a journalist and music critic based in London.
Tiago, Paulo
Mozambican born guitarist, member of the bands Tumi and the Volume and 340ml.
Tolsi, Niren
Tolsi is a senior journalist with the Mail & Guardian. His areas of interest include social justice; citizen mobilisation and state violence; protest; the constitution and the constitutional court and football.
Tooks, Lance
Tooks has been drawing all his life. A former assistant editor at Marvel Comics, his artwork has since appeared in television commercials, films and music videos. He self-published the comic books Danger Funnies, Divided by Infinity and Muthafucka, and his comics have appeared in Zuzu, Girltalk, World War 3 Illustrated, Spike Lee’s Floaters, and Lupo Alberto. He also illustrated The Black Panthers for Beginners, written by Herb Boyd. He recently completed Narcissa (Doubleday), his first graphic novel and a four volume series entitled Lucifer’s Garden of Verses (NBM). He lives in New York and Madrid.
Toye, Deji
Toye is an enterprise lawyer/governance professional by day and maintains an array of interests – including as editorial cartoonist, poet, playwright, literary critic and culture activist – the rest of the time.
Touré
Brooklyn-based writer, and the author of The Portable Promised Land, and most recently Soul City.
Tropp, Girija
Girija was raised in Africa by Indian parents, lives in Melbourne. She is completing a novel, polishing up new short fiction, and raising her children while juggling the demands of working in multimedia and as part-owner of a food manufacturing company. Her work has appeared in Boston Review, Zoetrope All-Story Extra, a Visible Ink anthology, and elsewhere
Tshikare, Atang
Tshikare is a artist and illustrator based in Cape Town.
Tsuba ka 23
A pan African collective of new media, word and note artists. Watch the Space for Pan-African Research, Creation and Knowledge (SPARCK).
Turner, Nicole
Turner‘s journalism and fiction work has been translated into German, French and Chinese and has been published in English by Chimurenga where she is an occasional contributing editor. She is working on a trilogy of crime novels.
Tyilo, Malibongwe
Tyilo founded the blog, “Skattie, What Are You Wearing?” which offers a fascinating view “on the trendy set that you’re not likely to find either in the obsequious ‘Society’ sections of the mainstream media, or in the celebrity-obsessed tabloids”. He is currently based in Cape Town where he works as a fashion buyer.
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Ugwu, Emeka
Ugwu is a Data Analyst who lives in Lagos, Nigeria. He also reviews books at Wawa Book Review.
Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa (Francisco Esaú Cossa’s pseudonym)
Cossa is one of Mozambique’s leading writers. His novel Ualalapi won the Grand Prize of Mozambican Fiction in 1990. And in 2007 he won the José Craveirinha Award for his book Os Sobreviventes da Noite.
Unigwe, Chika
Nigerian writer living in Belgium. Her short story, “The Secret” was short-listed for the 2004 Caine Prize. Her novel, De Feniks, was recently published in Belgium.
Uzoatu, Uzor Maxim
Uzoatu is a Lagos-based journalist and is a regular contributor to Premium Times in Nigeria. His fiction has been published in Wasafiri.
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van der Merwe, Kali
Co-founder of Other-Wise media – an organisation which creates awareness-raising media. She teaches media skills to marginalised youth. She is the current Director of the organisation and works as a media trainer, filmmaker, photographer, graphic designer and installation artist. Her last documentary, Doing it! (2003), explores issues around female sexuality.
van der Spuy, Patricia
Historian, based at Emory University.
Vari, Minette
An internationally renowned video and multimedia artist. She lives and works in Johannesburg
Verghese, Ben
Verghese is a writer based in London and Cape Town.
Verissimo, Jumoke
Lagos based writer. She is a sub-editor with www.farafina-online.com, a literary magazine.
Vincenot, Stella
Vincenot is a literary critic and academic based in New York.
Vincent, Cédric
von Bassewitz, David
Von Bassewiz studied cinematography at the University Erlangen, and illustration at the Fachhochschule, Wrzburg. Initially he constructed drawings and then the latter became paintings, and paintings eventually became the possibility of traveling without moving. He has been exploring the infiniteness of human imagination as a freelance artist in Hamburg ever since.
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wa Ngugi, Mukoma
Kenyan poet and essayist. Wa Ngugi is the author of Conversing with Africa: Politics of Change. His second book, A Malignant History: Looking at America, is forthcoming. He serves as the coordinator for the Toward an Africa without Borders Organization.
Wainaina, Binyavanga
Journalist, writer and founding editor of the Nairobi based literary journal Kwani? and winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2002. Previous works include An Affair to Dismember and Beyond the River Yei: life in the land where sleeping is a disease. His writings have also appeared in the New York Times, Granta, the Guardian, and National Geographic. Wainaina also writes a column for the Mail&Guardian.
Wakai, Kangsen Feka
Wakai was born in Bamenda in 1978, six years before Cameroon’s first coup attempt and fourteen years before its first multi-party elections. He holds a BA in Journalism. He lives in the Boston area
Wanjala, Barbara
Wanjala is a Kenyan writer from Nairobi.
Washington, Salim
Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Washington is a master tenor saxophonist, multi-reedsman, composer, jazz educator, and rising stars on the New York Jazz scene.
Weate, Jeremy
Weate is philosopher and the co-founder of Cassava Republic press, a publishing company based in Abuja.
Weizman, Eyal
An architech based in London and Tel Aviv. Weizman recently published Hollow Land, a book on Israel’s architecture of occupation. He’s also editor at large of the journal Cabinet.
Whande, Webster
Zimbabwean writer and researcher based in Cape Town.
White, Ernestine
Artist and Master Printer, White was recently employed as an Exhibition Coordinator-Curator: Parliamentary Millennium Project, Parliament of the Republic of South Africa.
Wicomb, Zoe
A writer, Wicomb is the author of the acclaimed You Can’t get Lost in Cape Town, David’s Story and most recently, Playing the Light. She is also a Senior Lecturer at University of Strathclyde.
Wise, Christopher
A critic and the editor of Yambo Ouologuem: Postcolonbial Writer, Islamic Militant. Most recently, Wise published a Yambo Ouologuem Reader.
Wokam, Jules
Wokam is a Cameroonian designer sculptor and painter. After winning the Award of the EU at the 6th Biennale de Dakar (May 2004) with his work “Mobilium” (gazebo), Wokam moved to the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris where he continued his research on the aesthetics of street furniture. He currently works from Douala.
Wonodi, Ikwunga
Not a new face among Afrobeat music followers in Nigeria and elsewhere; years back while a university student, he was a member of the “What?” collective, an underground campus hit in Nigeria. As a young medical doctor, Ikwunga was a regular opening act for Femi Kuti at the Afrika Shrine in Lagos. His latest album release is Calabash Afrobeat Poems Vol.1.
Wood, Molara
Nigerian writer who lives and works in London – she was last in Nigeria during Kanu’s reign. A freelance journalist, essayist and occasional poet, she writes a regular Arts column in the Guardian on Sunday, Lagos, Nigeria.
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ya Salaam, Kalamu
Founder of NOMMO Literary Society, a New Orleans-based creative writing workshop. Salaam is the leader of the WordBand, a poetry performance ensemble that combines poetry with blues, jazz and other forms of music. His work includes the spoken word CD My Story, My Song and his latest book is What Is Life? His other books include The Magic of Juju: An Appreciation of the Black Arts Movement.
Yamguen, Herve
Cameroonian poet and painter.
Yeoville Studios
Yeoville Studio is a community based education and research initiative spearheaded by Wits School of Architecture and Planning students, staff members and Yeoville residents and organizations, such as the Yeoville Stakeholders Forum. It aims to produce quality academic research through various community projects that are relevant to Yeoville.
Yere, Henri-Michel
Writer and historian from Côte d’Ivoire. His MA thesis looked at the dance and music known as “Zouglou” and how adolescents in Côte d’Ivoire used this cultural practice to deal with social and political events in the 1980s and 90s.
Young, James
A journalist, football and fiction writer. James has lived in Brazil for almost ten years and has published a book of dispatches from Recife titles A Beer Before Lunch.
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Zangewa, Belinda
Artist and top ten finalist of the ABSA Atelier Competition exhibition –winner of the Gerald Sekoto Award. Zangewa majored in Graphics and Printmaking at Rhodes University, in Grahamstown.
Zezelj, Danijel
Zezelj started publishing comics during his first year at Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia. Il Rhytmo del Cuoro (The Rhythm of the Heart), his first graphic novel, was published in 1993, with an introduction by legendary Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini. His illustrations and comics have since been published by DC Comics/Vertigo, Marvel Comics, New York Times Book Review, Harpers Magazine, San Francisco Guardian, and he’s the author of 28 graphics novels. He has also created a series of multimedia performances, in collaboration with musician/composer Jessica Lurie and writers Greiner and Kropilak. His latest book is Stray Dogs. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY..
Zossou, Gaston
A former English teacher and now Minister of Culture in Benin. He has published the essay “Au nom de l’Afrique”.
Zvomuya, Percy
A football fan, Zvomuya in his spare time, which is usually from Monday to Friday, writes about music, football, books, poverty and sometimes politics, for the Mail & Guardian.