For over 30 years, Willy Mutunga has blazed the trail in starting many important public conversations about remaking Kenya and the wider world into a better society. As a public intellectual, he has consistently challenged convenient stereotypes in an effort to bring down the social barriers erected by fear and ignorance, and led in persuading individuals and communities to re-examine widely held prejudices and to start difficult dialogues. Between 2006 and 2011, Mutunga wrote a weekly col...

This collection of essays reflects on the life and work of Ngugi wa Thiong'o, who celebrated his 80th birthday in 2018. Drawing from a wide range of contributors, including writers, critics, publishers and activists, the volume traces the emergence of Ngugi as a novelist in the early 1960s, his contribution to the African culture of letters at its moment of inception, and his global artistic life in the twenty-first century. Here we have both personal andcritical reflections on the differe...

Democracy in South Africa turns twenty on 27 April 2014. In A Rumour of Spring, Max du Preez investigates and analyses the progress and lack of progress the country has made during these twenty years. A Rumour of Spring looks at the legacies of Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki in an attempt to understand how we got here, and examines Jacob Zuma’s presidency to better understand where we are.In the context of blatant corruption, populism and tragedies such as the Marikana massacre, th...

Essential reading for anyone interested in the African continent and the diversity of human history, this Very Short Introduction looks at Africa's past and reflects on the changing ways it has been imagined and represented. Key themes in current thinking about Africa's history are illustrated with a range of fascinating historical examples, drawn from over 5 millennia across this vast continent.

For 30 years, the African National Congress, led by Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela, was the core of opposition to the white supremacist apartheid regime in South Africa. After organizing strikes and founding the armed military wing of the ANC, Mandela spent 27 years in jail before emerging as a worldwide symbol of human freedom.

Today, hundreds of thousands of people, desperate to escape war, violence and poverty, are crossing the Mediterranean to seek refuge in Europe. Our response from our protected European standpoint, argues Slavoj Zizek, offers two versions of ideological blackmail: either we open our doors as widely as possible; or we try to pull up the drawbridge. Both solutions are bad, states Zizek. They merely prolong the problem, rather than tackling it.The refugee crisis also presents an opport...

Where are we today and what is to be done? Slavoj Zizek ponders these questions in this unique and timely book. Based on live interviews, the book captures Zizek at his irrepressible best, elucidating such topics as the uprisings of the Arab Spring, the global financial crisis, populism in Latin America, the rise of China and even the riddle of North Korea. Zizek dazzles readers with his analyses of Hollywood films, Venezuelan police reports, Swedish crime fiction and much else. Wherever t...

International lawyer Philippe Sands has a unique insider's view of the elites who govern our lives. His sensational revelations in Lawless World changed the political agenda overnight, forcing Tony Blair to publish damning mterial that he'd tried to hide.Now, in this updated edition with a shocking new chapter, you can get the full story of how the US and UK governments are riding roughshod over international agreements on human rights, war, torture and the environment - the very la...

Novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o has been a force in African literature for decades: Since the 1970s, when he gave up the English language to commit himself to writing in African languages, his foremost concern has been the critical importance of language to culture. In Something Torn and New, Ngugi explores Africa's historical, economic, and cultural fragmentation by slavery, colonialism, and globalization. Throughout this tragic history, a constant and irrepressible force was Europhon...

'A brilliant, unlikely book' SpectatorHow can we celebrate, challenge and change our remarkable world?In 2012, the world arrived in London for the Olympics...and Ann Morgan went out to meet it. She read her way around all the globe's 196 independent countries (plus one extra), sampling one book from every nation. It wasn't easy. Many languages have next to nothing translated into English; there are tiny, tucked-away places where ve...

'The world is full of information. What do we do when we get the information, when we have digested the information, what do we do then? Is there a point where ye say, yes, stop, now I shall move on.' James Kelman here offers something of why a book such of this is in front of the public. The State relies on our suffocation, that we cannot hope to learn 'the truth.' But whether we can or not is beside 'the point.' Finally, there is no 'point.' We must grasp the nettle, we assume control an...

The battle for Mangaung will be lost and won on different fronts, as was the case at Polokwane. Astute political observer Aubrey Matshiqi takes a sharp look at the various players, from the intelligence community to the courts, the alliance and the media, as he casts his searchlight on the 'deep state', moral bankruptcy and bad leadership. A sobering, razor-sharp analysis of the uncomfortable 'Zuma moment'.