Activities
In addition to its magazine, Chimurenga produces other publications, events and specific projects.
Magazine
The first issue of Chimurenga magazine was published in April 2002. Each issue has a specific theme. Initially a quarterly, Chimurenga now appears approximately three times a year. Interrogating the superficial has always been the core agenda of the publication. The various renegades are captured in a series of profiles "thinking out loud". Chimurenga shies away from the Q&A format and includes deconstructed and imagined interviews, surreal short stories and poetry and other devices that challenge strict notions of fact and fiction. Covers are equally indicative of the orientation of a journal which is at once theoretical, erotic, and provocative. One cover featured the words of "Strange Fruit", the song about Southern lynchings that Billie Holiday immortalised. Another featured Neo Muyanga's portrait of Steve Biko's bruised face. The first edition showed Peter Tosh at a gig in Eswatini in the early 1980s, pointing an AK-47-shaped guitar in the direction of South Africa and chanting down Babylon.
Chimurenga orients itself not only to radical people that form its immediate target group, but also to the lay reader. It is distributed in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Kenya, Eswatini, Botswana and Ghana. Its distribution has seen it read on campuses in Germany, the United States, Great Britain and France.
The magazine has featured work by emerging as well as established voices including Njabulo Ndebele, Lesego Rampolokeng, Santu Mofokeng, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Gael Reagon, Binyavanga Wainaina, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Boubacar Boris Diop, Tanure Ojaide, Dominique Malaquais, Stacy Hardy, Goddy Leye, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Mahmood Mamdani, Jorge Matine, and Greg Tate, among others.
- Chimurenga Vol. 1, Music Is The Weapon, April 2002
- Chimurenga Vol. 2, Dis-Covering Home, July 2002
- Chimurenga Vol. 3, Biko in Parliament, November 2002
- Chimurenga Vol. 4, Black Gays & Mugabes, May 2003
- Chimurenga Vol. 5, Head/Body(&Tools)/Corpses, April 2004
- Chimurenga Vol. 6, The Orphans Of Fanon, October 2004
- Chimurenga Vol. 7, Kaapstad! (and Jozi, the night Moses died), July 2005
- Chimurenga Vol. 8, We're all Nigerian!, December 2005
- Chimurenga Vol. 9, Conversations in Luanda and Other Graphic Stories, June 2006
- Chimurenga Vol. 10, Futbol, Politricks & Ostentatious Cripples, December 2006
- Chimurenga Vol. 11, Conversations With Poets Who Refuse To Speak, July 2007. The magazine produces a presentation video of the issue. [6] The issue is translated into Swedish and published by the magazine Glänta 2/2010. [7]
- Chimurenga Vol. 12/13, Dr. Satan's Echo Chamber, March 2008. The magazine produces a presentation video of the issue. [8]
- Chimurenga Vol. 14, Everyone Has Their Indian, April 2009. Dedicated to Third World projects and links, real and imaginary, between Africa and South Asia. The magazine produces two presentation videos of the issue. [9]
- Chimurenga Vol. 15, The Curriculum is Everything, May 2010. The issue is conceived as a second chance to write history: a low-tech time-machine that allows produce a back-issue of a newspaper and to analyse xenophobic events that took place in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya in the week 11–18 May 2008. The issue is produced by an online editorial board [10] that involves writers, artists and journalists in collaboration with the magazines Chimurenga and Kwani? and the publishers Cassava Republic Press.
- Chimurenga Vol. 16: The Chimurenga Chronicle, October 2011 — described as "the once-off edition of an imaginary newspaper.... Set in the week 18–24 May 2008, the Chronic imagines the newspaper as producer of time – a time-machine.... An intervention into the newspaper as a vehicle of knowledge production and dissemination, it seeks to provide an alternative to mainstream representations of history, on the one hand filling the gap in the historical coverage of this event, whilst at the same time reopening it. The objective is not to revisit the past to bring about closure, but rather to provoke and challenge our perceptions." [11]
Chimurenga also has a monthly online edition that presents other short contributions not directly connected to the themes of the paper publication. [12]
Chimurenganyana
Chimurenganyana is a series of low-cost publications and a distribution system. A selection of articles from Chimurenga are printed on small sizes and are sold by street vendors who normally sell cigarettes. Each edition is focused on a specific theme.
Chimurenga Library
The Chimurenga Library is a selection of magazines and publications that - according to Chimurenga - influence thinking and writing in Africa. The selection is presented on an online database under CC-BY-SA compatible with Wikipedia; it presents general information on the magazines and a sort of genealogy that links publications to one another.
Magazines and publications presented on the Chimurenga Library are: African Film , Amkenah , Black Images , Chief Priest Say , Civil Lines , Ecrans d'Afrique , Frank Talk , Glendora Review , Hambone , Hei Voetsek! , Joe , Autre Afrique , Lamalif , Mfumu'eto , Molotov Cocktail , Moto , Okyeame , Revue Noire , Savacou , Souffles , Spear , Staffrider , Straight No Chaser , The Book of Tongues , The Cricket: Black Music in Evolution , The Liberator Magazine , The Uncollected Writings of Greg Tate , Third Text , Tsotso , Two Tone , Unir Cinéma , Wietie , Y Magazine (first five issues).
Artists, writers and intellectuals who have contributed texts and videos to the Chimurenga Library include: Rustum Kozain, Vivek Narayanan, Patrice Nganang, Khulile Nxumalo, Sean O'Toole, Achal Prabhala, Suren Pillay, Lesego Rampolokeng, Tracey Rose, Ivan Vladislavic, Barbara Murray, Akin Adesokan, Nicole Turner, Tunde Giwa, Brian Chikwava, Judy Kibinge, Olu Oguibe, Sam Kahiga, Mike Abrahams, Sola Olorunyomi, Marie-Louise Bibish Mumbu, Nadi Edwards, Brent Hayes Edwards, Sharifa Rhodes Pitts, Jean-Pierre Bekolo and Aryan Kaganof.
In 2009 Chimurenga Library is shown with the title "Chimurenga Library: An introspective of Chimurenga" at Cape Town Central Library with a series of multimedia itineraries (reading routes and sound posts) and live events (music, readings, meetings with authors, projections and wiki workshop during which students are involved in producing Wikipedia articles). [13] The idea of the presentation is to rethink a library as a laboratory which can trigger curiosity, adventures, critical thinking, activism, entertainment and random reading. The show presents panafrican independent periodicals, and the exhibition Why Must A Black Writer Write About Sex, a selection of texts on sex from African literature which confront stereotypes on sexuality and literature genres. [14]
PASS Pan African Space Station
The PASS Pan African Space Station is an annual 30-day musical intervention, that takes place through a freeform radio station and in unexpected venues across greater Cape Town. The initiative is promoted by Ntone Edjabe and Neo Muyanga (The Heliocentrics) in collaboration with Africa Centre and it is organised in 2008, 2009 and 2010. [15]
Pilgrimages
Pilgrimages is a project that sent 14 African writers to 13 African cities and one city of Brazil for two weeks to explore the complexity of urban landscapes. Pilgrimages commissioned travel books which narrate the experiences and the first African World Cup. The writers selected and their cities are Akenji Ndumu in Abidjan, Kojo Laing in Cape Town, Funmi Iyanda in Durban, Doreen Baingana in Hargeisa, Chris Abani in Johannesburg, Victor LaValle in Kampala, Nimco Mahamud Hassan in Khartoum, Alain Mabanckou in Lagos, Billy Kahora in Luanda, Nicole Turner in Nairobi, Abdourahman A. Waberi in Salvador, Uzodinma Iweala in Tombouctou and Binyavanga Wainaina in Touba. Pilgrimages is promoted by the Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artists of Bard College in collaboration with Chimurenga, Kwani Trust and Kachifo Limited and with the support among others of Open Society Foundations South Africa, Karibu Foundation, Doen Foundation, Heinrich Böll Foundation and Hivos. [16]
Nuruddin Farah is a Somali novelist. His first novel, From a Crooked Rib, was published in 1970 and has been described as "one of the cornerstones of modern East African literature today". He has also written plays both for stage and radio, as well as short stories and essays. Since leaving Somalia in the 1970s he has lived and taught in numerous countries, including the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Sudan, India, Uganda, Nigeria and South Africa.
Kenneth Binyavanga Wainaina was a Kenyan author, journalist and 2002 winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing. In 2003, he was the founding editor of Kwani? literary magazine. In April 2014, Time magazine included Wainaina in its annual Time 100 as one of the "Most Influential People in the World".
Njabulo Simakahle Ndebele is an academic and writer of fiction who is the former vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Cape Town (UCT). On November 16, 2012, he was inaugurated as the chancellor of the University of Johannesburg. He is currently the chairman of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ is a Kenyan American poet, author, and academic. He is associate professor of literatures in English at Cornell University and co-founder of the Safal-Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Writing. His father is the author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. His family was deeply impacted by the bloody British suppression of the Mau Mau revolution.
The Prince Claus Fund was established in 1996, named in honor of Prince Claus of the Netherlands. It receives an annual subsidy from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Kwani? is a prominent African literary magazine headquartered in Kenya. It has been hailed as "undoubtedly the most influential journal to have emerged from sub-Saharan Africa".
Omoseye Bolaji was a Nigerian writer who contributed to the growth of African literature in South Africa, especially in the Free State. Bolaji has been editor of South African publications including Free State News, Kopanang magazine, E and E magazine, and CHOICE magazine.
Civil Lines was an Indian literary magazine, launched in 1994 by publisher Ravi Dayal. In all its years of existence, the "magazine" has published exactly five issues, and none at all since the death of Ravi Dayal in 2006. Since the magazine is still nominally in existence, and was never "functional" to begin with, it cannot be said to be "defunct".
The Vera List Center for Art and Politics is an American nonprofit research organization and public forum for art, culture, and politics, established in 1992. Vera List was an American art collector and philanthropist.
Olufemi Terry is a Sierra Leone-born writer. He won the 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing for his second short story "Stickfighting Days," which was originally published in Chimurenga. The judges said he was "a talent with an enormous future". He hopes to publish his debut novel soon.
"Stickfighting Days" is the second short story of Sierra Leonean writer Olufemi Terry. It is the winner of the 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing. It was originally published in the pan-African magazine Chimurenga.
Ntone Edjabe is a Cameroonian writer, journalist, DJ and founding editor of Chimurenga magazine.
Goddy Leye was a Cameroonian artist and intellectual.
The Africa Centre, in Cape Town, South Africa, is structured as a not-for-profit organisation whose purpose is to provide a platform for Pan-African arts and cultural practice to function as a catalyst for social change. All the projects it conducts, facilitates or supports have some social intention. These projects are supported by a variety of Pan-African artists.
Warrick Swinney, more commonly known as Warrick Sony, is a South African composer, producer, musician and sound designer. He is the founder and sole permanent member of the Kalahari Surfers. They made politically radical satirical music in 1980s South Africa, and released it through the London-based Recommended Records. During this time the Surfers toured Europe with English session musicians.
Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva is a Ugandan writer, poet, actress, literary activist, and biographer. She is the founder of the Babishai Niwe (BN) Poetry Foundation formerly The Beverley Nambozo Poetry Award for Ugandan women, which began in 2008 as a platform for promoting poetry. It has since grown to include all African poets and runs as an annual poetry award. In 2014, the award will extend to the entire continent, targeting both men and women. The same year, the foundation will also publish an anthology of poetry from poets of Africa. She is also the founder of the Babishai Niwe Women's Leadership Academy..Nambozo joined the Crossing Borders Scheme British Council Uganda in 2003 under the short stories genre. She was nominated for the August 2009 Arts Press Association (APA) Awards for revitalising poetry in Uganda after initiating the Beverley Nambozo Poetry Award, the first poetry award for Ugandan women.
Ellah Wakatama, OBE, Hon. FRSL, is the Editor-at-Large at Canongate Books, a senior Research Fellow at Manchester University, and Chair of the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. She was the founding Publishing Director of the Indigo Press. A London-based editor and critic, she was on the judging panel of the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award and the 2015 Man Booker Prize. In 2016, she was a Visiting Professor & Global Intercultural Scholar at Goshen College, Indiana, and was the Guest Master for the 2016 Gabriel Garcia Marquez Foundation international journalism fellowship in Cartagena, Colombia. The former deputy editor of Granta magazine, she was the senior editor at Jonathan Cape, Random House and an assistant editor at Penguin. She is series editor of the Kwani? Manuscript Project and the editor of the anthologies Africa39 and Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction.
Yemisi Aribisala is a Nigerian essayist, writer, painter, and food memoirist. She has been described as having a "fearless, witty, and unapologetic voice" Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, Vogue magazine, Chimurenga, Popula, Google Arts & Culture, The Johannesburg Review of Books, Critical Muslim 26: Gastronomy, Sandwich Magazine , The Guardian (UK), Aké Review, and Olongo Africa.
Book fairs and literary festivals are held throughout South Africa each year to promote literacy among children and adults. A country's literacy rate is often a key social indicator of development. In 2005, UNESCO Institute for Statistics reported a literacy rate of 94.37% among the population aged 15 years and older. The literacy rate among the male population in this age group was 95.4% and 93.41 for female counterparts. According to Statistics South Africa, functional illiteracy among those aged 20 years or older, was recorded at 15.4% in 2005. This has improved from 2002's 27.3%. Women are more likely to be functionally illiterate across all age groups, apart from those aged between 20 and 39 years old.
Lolwe is an online magazine that publishes fiction, literary criticism, personal essays, photography, and poetry.