News & Events, January '08

Chimurenga Online

"To answer the question of how the promise became a nightmare one must begin with very nature of democracy and how it has been functioning in Africa..." Mukoma Wa Ngugi writes on Kenya's democracy on trial.

"Like Juliet did to the love-struck Romeo in the Dire Straits song, Kenya exploded on my heart." Petina Gappah writes on Kenya.

Lit mags: majitas, women's issues & interzones

Poeisiapoa Njeri, Samuel Munene and Ndanu Mung’ala flexed muscles in Kwani's "To be a Man" poetry competition. Catch them in Kwani's forthcoming To Be a Man anthology. Still at Kwani: a fiction writing workshop from January 31 to February 20. Send a manuscript of 2500-5000 words to workshop@kwani.org.

Farafina's Woman Issue edited by Toni Kan is now available online. Also watch out for Kan's Nights of the Creaking Bed and Other Stories out soon from Cassava Republic.

Racism in the Closet: Interrogating Postcolonial Sexuality: a call for papers exploring relationship between discourses of race and sexuality from Darkmatter.

And the Feminist press pit Besse Head against Ngugi Wa Thiong'o in To Stir the Heart:Four African Stories.

African Writing dedicates its new issue to South African writing. Inside: fiction, poetry, profiles and essays by Lebogang Mashile, Don Mattera, Bongani Madondo, Victor Dlamini, Zukiswa Wanner; Aryan Kaganof, Colleen Higgs and more.

South Africa gets its own "New Yorker": WordsEtc. The debut issue includes a profile on Sol Plaatjie and why Haruki Murakami decided to be a novelist after listening to jazz. Watch this space. And the Bread Loaf Writers Conference in the US is offering a fellowship to African poets fiction or nonfiction writers to attend the 2008 conference, August 13-24. Applications here.

The Language Curtain: a special issue of Gboungboun on Francophone African literature. Also Volume 3 of Ponal Quarterly Forum, the new cyber salon of African(ist) discourse will focus on Okwui Enwezor.

Wasafiri goes quarterly. Send fiction, poetry, interviews, articles, art pieces and reviews.

Lyrical terror

Just out: Songs for Wonodi, an anthology of poems in memory of Ikwerre poet Okogbule Wonodi and Echoes from the Mountain: new and selected poems by South African poet Mazisi Kunene.

And new poetry collections from Anglo-Cam writer Kangsen Feka Wakai, South Africa's Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, Joburg performance poet Richard Fox and Nigeria's .Tanure Ojaide. Also: Tanure Ojaide: Oil and Literature in the Niger Delta: a call for papers for the 2nd Ojaide International Conference (July 9-13), Delta State University, Nigeria.

"Reading and visual art – what an old war" in Art South Africa with words and images from Willem Boshoff, fiction by Gabeba Baderoon and Ivan Vladislavic, Q&A with Clementine Deliss, and reading lists – artists read, seem?

And catch Gabeba live at Winternachten Literature Festival in The Hague, January 17-20. And check the Cairo International Book Fair January 1 – February 29.

More word bombs: "Lyrical terrorist" Samina Malik convicted under the 2000 Terrorism Act for scrawling poems on till receipts.

Dinaw Mengestu's Children of the Revolution wins Guardian First Book Award. Read an extract here.

African cosmopolis

At Africultures: Franck Houndégla re-reads Politique Africaine 100: Cosmopolis: edited by Chimurenga Associate Editor Dominique Malaquais via the recent African Perspectives on architecture and the In & Out the City: African Photography Encounters in Bamako 2007.

Month of Peoples Photography want street photography for 2008's Home Sweet Street, Cape Town. Send historical documents, political propaganda, pornography, files for personal memories etc. Deadline: Jan 2008 (extension for all Slaapstadt folk). Also: a call for 500 word essays from any writers and all the previous MOPP exhibitors for a catalogue of the MOPP. e-mail: ghettogether@gmail.com or visit their blog.

Mixtapes, afrobeats & voodoo

Download the Africanhiphop.com Nigerian free mixtape. Curated by Africanhiphop.com forum members from around the world with Zero (a.k.a. the Apprentice) in the drivers seat. The next phase: a pan-African mixtape.

Afrobeat guys get together: poet Ikwunga Wonodi and Canadian Afro-beat group Mr. Something Something on Deep Sleep: a rugged 11-part Fela-style analogue journey. Check the Chimurenga online archives for Dike Okoro in conversation with Ikwunga.

And intelligent progressive riffmania and retro jazz-rock freakadelia from Joburg's Blkjks: limited edition "Lakeside" b/w "One Must Die" debut 10in single now available worldwide.

More Hendrixian slight returns at the Benin 16th Voodoo Festival (January 10).

Heppy Heppy 08!