News & Events, October '08

Yambo, Botsotso, Urban Voices & other writing

"How do you deal with the wild ‘n woolly things the guy does to French language – I mean really strange stuff?" Ntone Ejabe and Dominique Malaquais on translating Yambo Ouloluem (Chimurenga Vol. 5, 2003). Christopher Wise gives it a go with The Yambo Ouologuem Reader featuring a new translation of Le devoir de violence, newly entitled The Duty of Violence, along with translations of A Black Ghostwriter’s Letter to France and an excerpt from his erotic novel, The Thousand and One Bibles of Sex.

"It was clear to many that, if used fully, the teaching facilities of the university could support many more students. Just because Makerere the hotel was full did not mean that Makerere the university was also full..." Download  the full text of Mahmood Mamdani’s Scholars in the Marketplace here. 

Issue 55 of Wasafiri: Writing China, guest edited by Suman Gupta looks at major literary and cultural debates which reflect Chinese society today. Featured writers include Li Rui, Mo Yan, Yan Lianke and Lin Bai.

From Botsotso: View from an Escalator, poetry by Liesl Jobson. Mma Afrika, Theto ya Segagešo (poems in Sepedi) by Tlou Setumu. Also: Botsotso 15: fiction, poetry and essays from participants in the Jozi Spoken Word Festival, as well as new work. Contributors include Achmat Dangor, Mak Manaka, Botsotso Jesters, Veronique Tadjo, Mphutlane wa Bofelo and more.

Urban Voices 2008 features Don Mattera (South Africa), Adrian Mitchell (UK), Mutabaruka and Jean Binta Breeze (Jamaica) and more. October 16 until November 15 in Jo’burg, Cape Town and Durban.

Jambula Tree and other short stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing 8th Annual Collection features Monica Arac de Nyeko from Uganda's winning story along with stories by the shortlisted candidates. The volume also previews the 2008 shortlist.

CAVALCADE  literary journal, devoted to publishing original stories, poems, one-act plays, reviews, critical essays and art from an African perspective, debuts this month with a special edition. The tri-annual journal, a project of the Abuja Writers' Forum (AWF), is now seeking submissions for the second and third editions.

Teju Cole, the Brooklyn-based author of Every Day is for The Thief, will be touring Nigeria this November. Cole will read from his first book in Lagos (the CCA), Ogun State (Babcock University), Abuja (Cyprian Ekwensi Centre), Kaduna (Kaduna State University), Zaria (ABU), Jos (UniJos) and Sokoto (UDF). Watch this space.

Takin' it one panel at a time... Lance Tooks releases his new graphic novel, Anansi's Dreambook. For more Tooks see Chimurenga Vol. 9 Conversations in Luanda and Other Graphic Stories.

Social Justice, Felabrations, Songs for Biko, Independent Voice of Zimbabwe

The Social Justice Coalition (SJC) launch a new lecture series: The Irene Grootboom Community Lecture Series, to address rights to housing, education, equality. At Salt River community House in Cape Town. Until October 15.

Sean Jacobs talks to Botswana-born DJ Tsidi (Matale) about democracy, music, immigration on A Walk Around the Blog, filmmaker Nerina Penzhorn's online and TV series that profiles Brooklyn bloggers.

Peter Tosh Poetry/Reggae Tribute: Sounds of Edutainment, Botsotso Publishers, T-shirt Terrorist, the Joubert Park Project, Kulture, Park Communications, Kwazi Khali Productions, White Dove Designs and Rebelations Media celebrate the musical legacy of  reggae icon, Peter Tosh, Drill Hall in Joburg, October 25 all night long.Details here.

The Anti-racism Review Conference to be held in Geneva, Switzerland April 20-24 2009 will evaluate progress towards the goals set by the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in Durban, South Africa in 2001. Follow the progress here.

After some 35 years imprisonment under solitary confinement in Louisiana’s Angola prison, the Black Panther Albert Woodfox of the "Angola 3" is now up for retrial following the decision that his original case was unfairly assessed.

Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s chronicles 50 years of the cultural productions of social movements - from the American Indian Movement to Women's Liberation, the South African Anti-Apartheid struggle to German Autonomen and squatters to South Korea's Kwang Ju uprising. Exit Art, New York until November 22.

Lagos pays tribute with this year's Felabration Festival, including special concert outside Femi Kuti's Afrika Shrine on October 18. Artist include Femi and Seun Kuti, Baaba Maal, Amadou and Mariam and Tony Allen. As Fela say, "I never come again, I still dey far away, make you wait till I reach where I dey go."

"We must fight against the deliberate attempt to reduce Biko to a mere icon by revisionists. Biko and BC are a living force let the words 'BIKO LIVES' ring with revolution...." BIKO LIVES!, Frank Talk, 11 November 1984. How do we remember Biko? Biko Lives! is edited by Andile Mngxitama, Amanda Alexander, and Nigel C. Gibson and features contributions from Neville Alexander, Mphutlane wa Bofelo, Ashwin Desai and Tinyikosam Maluleke, among others.

Also view Songs for Biko, and other stomps, screams and prayers, staged and captured by Lesedi Mogoatlhe and sliced by Lila Earth at PASS RADIO's 24 hour marathon vigil held on September 12 (Biko Day).

Tune into The Independent Voice of Zimbabwe, an open-forum, no-format, free-thinking radio broadcast by Zimbabweans for Zimbabweans. In Zimbabwe and South Africa: shortwave 4880kHz broadcast 7-9pm Zimbabwe time. Outside the broadcast area, listen over the internet at www.swradioafrica.com.

And read Women Writing Zimbabwe, edited by Irene Staunton explores the way in which events of the last decade have impacted on individuals, women in particular. Writers featured include Petina Gappah, Valerie Tagwira, Blessing Musariri and more.

African Cinema

CinemAfrica, Sweden, a non-profit film association is looking for submissions of feature films, short films and documentaries produced and directed by African filmmakers. Screening fees are paid. Get the submission form here.

"As British filmmaker Robin Shuffield's recently released documentary film, Thomas Sankara: The Upright Man shows, Sankara openly challenged both French hegemony in West Africa as well as his fellow military leaders (Sankara labeled them 'criminals in power'...." Africa is a Country on The Upright Man.

Jesus And The Giant Akin Omotoso’s experimental short film starring Mandisa Bardill, Sonny Chidiebere Ochuba and Lesego Mabilo, written by Aryan Kaganof and shot entirely (save for the last shot of the film) on a digital stills camera premiered in Joburg. View the trailer here.

Nathan Collett and Godfrey Ojiambo's short fictional fim, Charcoal Traffic, shot over 15 years in Somalia wins Best Short Fiction Award’ at VideoFest in San Francisco. Check it out online here.

Africa in Motion 2008 in Edinburgh features over 40 films from 22 African countries. Souleymane Cissé and Burkinabe director Gaston Kaboré both present retrospectives of their work. October 23 - November 2.

The Journal of African Cinemas explores the interactions of visual and verbal narratives in African film. The editors are seeking papers that expound on the identity or identities of Africa and its peoples represented in film.

The Second E. Desmond Lee Africa World Documentary Film Festival, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA & Bridgetown, Barbados, West Indies invites submissions. Deadline December 1. Submission details here. 

Awards & tributes

"I like to say that America is like my distant uncle who doesn’t remember my name but occasionally gives me pocket money. That phone call filled me with an enormous affection for my uncle!" Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on receiving a MacArthur Foundation Genius Award.

The Anisfield-Wolf Awards nicknamed "The Black Pulitzer" is taking submissions. 2008 awards were Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist; and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel.

Castro gets the Ubuntu award from the National Heritage Council of South Africa (NHCSA) for his role in the Cuban revolution and his worldwide contribution to the struggle for an alternative, just and humane society.

"Nègre je suis, Nègre je resterai" The Aimé Césaire International Colloquium pays tribute to writer and politician Martinican Aimé Césaire, October 15 - 17, 2008 at Cave Hill Campus, The University of the West Indies, Barbados.

Only two writers made the 2008 Nigeria Prize for Literature shortlist: Jude Dibia (Unbridled) and Kaine Agary (Yellow-Yellow). And the "Internet Entrepreneurs of Nigeria" received the Ig Nobel prize this year "for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters...."

Mda, Obama, Mbembe, Lobato

Author Zakes Mda responds to Stephen Gray's take, published in the Mail & Guardian, on the plagiarism charges levelled against Mda by Andrew Offenburger earlier this year.

"Because of his African roots, this possibility has been met with euphoria and enthusiasm in the continent. In some instances, African expectations are the expression of racial pride. In others, they are simply irrational, unrealistic and misguided." Achille Mbembe writes on Obama and the continent of Africa.

Or forget Mbembe and check out Lobato, the Brazilian sci-fi author who’s 1926 novel O Presidente Negro predicted a U.S. election determined by race and gender. Download it here.