News & Events, December '07

Fanon Can't Dance

Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, a feminist scholar and the publisher of Cassava Republic Press on "Fanon Can't Dance: Antiphonies of the Gaze" at the C-Factory in November. Check out the pics.

Bad sex and new writing

"What is a naked man doing running across the pages of Kwani?" Bobastles Nondi on Kwani 4: Meanders Into The Desert Sand Of The Dead Habit in Art Matters.

New writing: Die nuwe Ons Klyntji (Jaargang 111 nr 1, November 2007) is nou beskikbaar. And Botsotso 14 out with poetry, fiction, graphics, essays & reviews.

Napo Masheane has a new poetry anthology, Caves Speak in Metaphors. Catch her at the Market Theater LAB on Saturday, December 8th and Listen in on a Black Woman with a Voice. Also Lebo Mashile in conversation with Victor Dlamini here.

Check Alain Mabanckou's new blog

Ellen Banda-Aaku scoops the 2007 Commonwealth Short Story Competition.

Chimamanda Adichie, Caryl Phillips, Doreen Baingana, Colin Channer, Kwame Dawes and Binavanga Wainaina all on the line up for the 2008 PALF in Accra. More from Chimamanda in this month's Bookforum.

Jozi launches the Johannesburg Literary Festival: JoLiFe 2008.

Adekeye Adebajo reviews Wole Soyinka's new book and an extract: Soyinka's Tribute To Fela. Njabulo Ndebele's Fine Lines from the Box out. And Don Mattera's Azanian Love Songs reissued with a new introduction by Prof E'skia Mphahlele. From Pathfinder Press: a new edition of Thomas Sankara Speaks, a collection of Sankara's speeches.

Issue 11 of Farafina magazine : "Journeys", guest edited by Petina Gappah with work by Chris Abani, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Martin Kimani, Olga Grushin , Gado, Darrel Bristow-Bovey and Mario Pissarra, amongst others.

Blk Jks and the ghost of Jimi

A "sort of bitches brew ali farka toure maskanda-malian blues fusion with arrangements for brass plus lots of digital disruption..." when Jozi-based band the Blk Jks team up with writer and XL Recordings Ghetto Arc curator Knox Robinson on a new single. Watch this space for more & catch the Jks in Jozi on December 7.

Ernestine Deane (vocalist of Moodphase5ive) drops her solo, Dub for Mama featuring Neo Muyanga, Brydon Bolton, Tim Parr, Zane Carim, Fanus Tofte.

Exploring African Cultural through Music and Dance on in Accra. A Tribute Concert to Malian-born African music hero Mamadou Konte founder of Africa Fete in Dakar. Ands news on the new Mamadou Konté prize. And the 4th Annual Kenya Music Week 9 in Nairobi.

RIP Donald Ayler (1942-2007), the trumpet playing younger brother of saxophonist Albert Ayler. More here.

"He smiles ominously and says, 'Mr Fat once to see you.' I feel like I am in a movie. But ... you can't get to grips with hip hop in South Africa without getting to grips with Cape Town. And when Mr Fat wants to see you? You go and see Mr Fat." Yesterday (28 November 2007) Mr Fat (government name Ashley Titus) passed away. Sean Jacobs remembers.

Gambling on the big screen

The Dubai International Film Festival runs from December 9-16 . The Cinema of Africa segment includes the World Premiere of Confessions of a Gambler, novelist Rayda Jacobs' look at Grand West addicts in Cape Town (in Dubai! That's hilarious). Nollywood's "biggest film fiesta" in Lagos from December 4-7. Check a retrospective of the late director Ousmane Sembene's oeuvre.

Meanwhile Nehad Selaiha has harsh words for the miserable treatment of artists at the 2nd Women Directors Festival in Cairo.

A call for application for a photography short courses in 2008 from the Market Photo Workshop in Jozi. And Maisha Film Lab is hunting screenwriters, directors, editors, sound recordist and cinematographers for their 2008 Annual Lab that will be held in Kampala, Uganda.

Fighting Women? The Sixth International Images Film Festival for Women until December 8 in Harare and December 14 – 16 in Bulawayo.

Experimental public art projects, urban mobility, informal sector, recycling and modernity in Doual'art, Douala, Cameroon, December 9 – 16.

Over 100 South African artists and big buck awards in Spier Contemporary 2007 in Cape Town from December 12.

Africa Remix, Simon Njami's massive contemporary Africa Art exhibition hits the road with a fringe touring show featuring photographs, assemblages, design creations and video installations by 11 of the Remix artists. Catch it in Cape Town in December, Swaziland in January and Maputo in Feb. Details here.