Rafiki was supposed to be celebrated as the first Kenyan feature film to be screened at the world renowned Cannes Film Festival. It could have put Kenya’s nascent film industry on the map. Instead, it has become the center of a controversy over censorship and a worrying sign for freedom of speech in Kenya.
On Friday April 27, South Africa celebrates 24 years since the historic first vote in 1994. Today, the day is noted as a public holiday with festivities in some quarters. For most, however, it’s a day off to run a few errands.
South Africans are bad at saving, or at least it seems that way from the formal financial sector. Yet, a centuries-old model of collective savings reveals a financial savvy that has long been ignored by the banking sector.
It made no sense that a country like South Africa, with year-round sunshine, would abandon its renewable energy options to focus on nuclear power instead.
Former US president Barack Obama will be returning to South Africa—this time to deliver the annual Nelson Mandela lecture.
Long before streetfood became trendy, women in markets across West Africa were smoking hundreds of fish, shellfish, and prawns to sell each day. A closer look at this favorite snack, however, shows that it could be dangerous for both consumers and cooks.
Swaziland is no more. The tiny country between South Africa and Mozambique will now be known as the Kingdom of eSwatini.
KPMG’s expanded campus overlooking one of Johannesburg’s main highways used to be a sign of the firms confidence in the South African economy. Now, however, it is South Africans who have little confidence in the international auditing firm after it was embroiled in an epic corruption scandal that is still unfolding in South Africa.
Much like her mother would have at activists’ funerals during the apartheid era, Zenani Mandela-Dlamini allowed her righteous anger to lead her tribute at the state funeral for Winnie Madikizela-Mandela on Saturday April 14.
In his now iconic satirical essay How to write about Africa Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina skewers every literary stereotype about the continent. His recipe for writing the African story—an orange sunset, noble animals Aids and a dash of Joseph Conrad—is hilarious until the realization that it is all too true of fiction and non-fiction about Africa.
One of the Netherlands’ most prestigious universities is offering a twist to its African studies curriculum. With a blog post titled, “African Studies ‘goes animal'” Leiden University announced a new research project to include “animal perspectives” in the programs of its African Studies Centre. While well intentioned, the project raises uncomfortable questions about the representation of Africans.
Over three thousand years ago, a man named Paneb was one of the most accomplished workmen in a town of artisans who chiseled the pharaohs’ tombs. Yet, his corruption and treatment of women made him insufferable and may have cost him his job. It is one of the earliest known cases of powerful men brought down by charges of sexual misconduct.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was a complex woman, and the obituaries and tributes issued in South Africa after her death at 81 have struggled to find balance in recalling her life.
As a black child, my thick natural hair often felt like a burden. Like millions of women around the world with hair like mine—disparagingly termed a “nappy” in the United States, “cabelo crespo” in Brazil, and “kroes” in South Africa—the only relief offered by the retail world was to apply harsh chemical treatments that stripped away the hair’s diversity, making it sleek, but often damaged and lifeless in the process.
One of the earliest recorded tours to the Rwenzori Mountains was in the second century, when Alexandrian mathematician Claudius Ptolemy, searching for the source of the Nile river, named them the “mountains of the moon.”
Now you can explore Africa’s largest art collection from your smartphone. The Johannesburg Art Gallery has become the latest museum to make itself available on Google’s virtual museum tours. Along with the museum’s collection of Picasso’s and Manet’s, it is also showcasing a broad range of South African artists who may not yet have had exposure outside of the country.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has passed away at 81. Her family said she had suffered from a long illness and died peacefully. “Mrs Madikizela-Mandela was one of the greatest icons of the struggle against Apartheid.”
Botswana quietly acquired a new president over the weekend.
One of the world’s most prominent humanitarian organizations, Oxfam, is still reeling from the reputational damage caused when its own workers were caught misusing their power in some of the world’s most vulnerable communities.
A film more than fifty years old and less than five minutes long has a message that would not be out of place in Africa today.
Tucked between butchers and hair braiders in Nairobi’s Kenyatta Market is the Real Vinyl Guru, a shabby stall that has become a mecca for vinyl lovers.
Black Panther director and scriptwriter Ryan Coogler was determined to make the film’s fictional setting of Wakanda a positive image of Africa. African audiences have rewarded this vision by making it the highest grossing film in southern, East and West Africa ever.
For all the excitement around African contemporary art, the continent still accounts for a fraction of the global art market.
The last male northern white rhino has died.
