News & Events, November '07

FS Black Writing, El comandante, Botsotso Jesters & books

FS Black Writing is exploding. Pule Lechesa speaks to Omoseye Bolaji about his awards, general grassroots writing in the Free State and Black Writing in general. Read it here.

Still in the Vrystad Free State of Verse: Spoken Word features Napo Masheane, Mphutlane wa Bofelo, Sipho Mnyakeni, Lesego Rampolokeng, Jah Rose & Band, Icebound and music by Cut Band. November 27 at Lesedi Jazz Room (PACOFS), Bloem.

More straight talk in My Life by Fidel Castro: 700 pages of Q&As with el comandante now out: "every day, I think, I'm less conceited, less pretentious, less self-satisfied. It's a struggle against your instincts, you know. I believe that it's education, or sincere and tenacious self-education, that turns a small animal into a man." More extracts here.

Then Botsotso Publishing bash out six new titles including BELLA: Collected Poems by now deceased founding member Isabella Motadinyane: "One leg in/another leg out/tight me up/strongly sewn/visable mending…/die is mos botsotsos".

Ribat El Koutoub, an online Moroccan literary magazine makes its debut. The first issue of Critical Interventions, arts and visual cultures of global Africa edited by Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie hits the streets. And Inyathi - a new journal of the arts in the Eastern Cape, South Africa launches November 9 in East London.

This year's LABAF - 9th Lagos Book & Arts Festival looks at "Literacy As Democracy Dividend" November 9-11. Programme available here. And Libya hosts the International Book Fair Tripoli, from November 12.

Adam Haupt's book Stealing Empire tracks the "stealing empire" subversions of file-sharers, culture jammers and SA hip-hop activists. Get it here.

Shimmer Chinodya's Strife nabs the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa in 2007. Honourable Mentions to Le Lièvre et la Pintade by Gina Dick; Room 207 by Kgebetli Moele; Readers' Theatre: Twelve Plays for Young People by Mabel Segun and At Her Feet by Nadia Davids.

Exile, the true nature of the African & Sarah Baartman bites back

At Eurozine Zimbabwean author Chenjerai Hove writes about a journey without maps, while Seloua Luste Boulbina writes on being inside and outside simultaneously via Algerian novelist Assia Djebar.

Meanwhile Wanjiku Wa Ngugi, Mukoma Wa Ngugi and Nducu Wa Ngugi let rip at colonial hangovers with "Top Ten Reasons to Read Vanity Fair's Article - A Flowering Evil". The article in question is penned by Mark Seal and is set to be made into a film staring Julia Roberts to be shot in 2008.

And Pius Adesanmi resurrects Sarah Baartman to pen Disappearing Me Softly: an open letter to Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, the editors of the new edition of Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism: A Reader.

Calls, Outing Africa, film fests & words on film

African Writing the UK-based magazine for writing "from across Africa and her diaspora", is after "essays, reviews, any fictive writing or creative non fiction on "the experience of being South African".

And a call and a provocation from Politique Africaine - for an issue on Angola. Also calls for: entries to the M-Net Literary Awards ; and contributions to African Reflections – aGN's forth-coming book African Reflections, featuring poetry & prose by African Authors.

Notisha Massaquoi & Selly Thiam are collecting stories of Africans from the continent and within the diasporic communities that identify as queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (QLGBT) for their new anthology None on Record: Stories of Queer Africa. Email NORsubmission@gmail.com or visit www.myspace.com/noneonrecord

Still on the QLGBT tip: Parvez Sharma throws open religion and sexuality in the lives of lesbian and gay Muslims; Sechaba Morojele look at GLBT lives in SA and Émilie Jouvet stirs things up with a lesbian sex movie that's screenings are restricted to women only. All at the Out in Africa film festival in Jozi (2 – 11 November) & Kaapstad (9 –18 November).

Also get to: the Cairo International Film Festival (November 27 - December 7); CinemaEast Film Festival 2007 in New York for indie films from the Middle East, North Africa, and their Diasporas (November 8 – 15); Festival des Trois Continents November 20 – 27 in France; and Sithengi South African Film & Television Market November 4 – 21 in Cape Town.

Then words on film by Akin Omotoso, Sabelo Dludla, Paul Zisiwe, Sean O'Toole, Msizi Moshoetsi and more in Kagablog's new South African Cinema enclave.

Audio archives, online radio & hip-hop terror

Dig into over 300 hours of archived online digital video footage spanning 20 years of anti-apartheid struggles of the people of the Western Cape over at the Community Video Education Trust (CVET) website.

Listen in on The Ravaging of Africa a four-part radio documentary series about the destructive impact of U.S. imperialism on Africa written by Asad Ismi. Streams, downloads and scripts available here.

Julian Jonker curates SA sound art in NewMediaFest2007: 1st common festival of [NewMediaArtProjectNetwork]:||cologne. Listening to Brendon Bussy, Garth Erasmus, Neo Muyanga, James Webb, James Sey, Righard Kapp, Brydon Bolton and Julian Jonker online.

Preview Kaapstad hip-hopper Terror MC's solo debut via visual artist and African Hip-hop founder Mustafa Maluka's video mash up for the track "Liberate Yourself".

And talking hip-hop: well worth its word count, Greg Tate's crazy In Praise of Assholes: "Kanye can't rap. 50 is retrograde. Both are absolutely necessary" - in the Village Voice.

Get to Evo LokxiOn Sundaze "The Hood Like Never Before" for urban & indigenous crossover sounds, fashion and art and craft in Vosloorus, east of Gauteng on the 1st Sunday of the month from 12am till late. More info here.

Catch Frenchie Sophie Alour with her "jazz straight-up" at Kippies on the 20 November and Tunisian Dhafer Youssef "electric sufi jazz" on the 24 November. Info here.

And in Cape Town the Fong Kong Bantu Sound System rips through Zula Bar with their brand of mash up dancefloor style on November 10.

Goodbyes

Rest in Peace: Lucky Dube (August 1964 - October 2007). Emile YX (Black Noise) asks " are we all to blame for Lucky Dube's death?" here.

Also John "MC" Swarts who passed away on the October 10, he was part of the very first Kaapstad breakdance crew The City Kids Breakers back in 1984; Cyprian Ekwensi one of the grand old men of African fiction who passed away this month and South African journalist, public intellectual and poet Margaret Legum who died on November 2. Condolences to their families.