Best of
Africa

1978

I Write What I Like: Selected Writings


Steve Biko - 1978
    They also reflect his conviction that black people in South Africa could not be liberated until they united to break their chains of servitude, a key tenet of the Black Consciousness movement that he helped found.I Write What I Like contains a selection of Biko's writings from 1969, when he became the president of the South African Students' Organization, to 1972, when he was prohibited from publishing. The collection also includes a preface by Archbishop Desmond Tutu; an introduction by Malusi and Thoko Mpumlwana, who were both involved with Biko in the Black Consciousness movement; a memoir of Biko by Father Aelred Stubbs, his longtime pastor and friend; and a new foreword by Professor Lewis Gordon.Biko's writings will inspire and educate anyone concerned with issues of racism, postcolonialism, and black nationalism.

Biko


Donald Woods - 1978
    Donald Woods, Biko's close friend and a leading white South African newspaper editor, exposed the murder helping to ignite the black revolution.

The Emperor: Downfall of An Autocrat


Ryszard Kapuściński - 1978
    While the fighting still raged, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Poland's leading foreign correspondent, traveled to Ethiopia to seek out and interview Selassie's servants and closest associates on how the Emperor had ruled and why he fell. This "sensitive, powerful. . .history" (The New York Review of Books) is Kapuscinski's rendition of their accounts—humorous, frightening, sad, grotesque—of a man living amidst nearly unimaginable pomp and luxury while his people teetered between hunger and starvation.

The Healers


Ayi Kwei Armah - 1978
    African Studies. THE HEALERS tells a story of the conflict and regeneration focused on replacing toxic ignorance with the healing knowledge of African unity.

The Testimony Of Steve Biko: Black Consciousness in South Africa


Steve Biko - 1978
    Bantu Stephen Biko, that country's most important Black leader, stepped forward to testify on their behalf and thus broke the ban on his public speaking. In the late 1960s, Biko had founded the Black Consciousness movement, which called for the psychological and cultural liberation of the Black mind as a precondition to political freedom; the movement spread rapidly among students and the masses, and his goal of using group pride to break the strangle hold of White oppression was partly realized by the time that his colleagues were placed on trial. Biko's courageous and delicate testimony, recorded here in the dramatic format of direct and cross examination, explores almost every issue in South Africa and..shows something of Biko's brilliance, humor, vision and quickness of mind. This was to be his last public statement. In Sept. 1977, Bantu Stephen Biko was murdered in a South African jail.

The House of Hunger


Dambudzo Marechera - 1978
    They are about the brutalization of the individual's mental processes, until madness, violence and despair become the normal state of affairs for families in black urban areas.

Rumours Of Rain


André P. Brink - 1978
    But his visit coincides with a time of crisis in his personal life. In a few days, the security of a lifetime is destroyed and, with only the uncertain values of his past to guide him, Mynhardt is left to face the wreckage of his future.

The Zulu War Journal


Henry Charles Harford - 1978
    From the catastrophe at Isandhlwana to the hunt for the Zulu King Cetshwayo, this journal chronicles the events central to the Zulu Wars, and remembers the men who bravely fought in them. Taking the reader on a journey throughout Zululand, Harford tells of the heroic struggles at Rorke’s Drift, the recovery of the Queen’s Colour of the 1st Battalion, 24th Regiment at Fugitive’s Drift and even of becoming well acquainted with a Zulu King. A truly fascinating piece of history, 'The Zulu War Journal' is essential for all lovers of military history and of Africana.

African Traditional Architecture: An Historical And Geographical Perspective


Susan Denyer - 1978
    

Christmas In The City


Afari Assan - 1978
    The city boys from his school are preparing to return to Accra, to the cinemas and nightclubs. They invite him to join them and share the pleasures of the city.

Trade Without Rulers: Pre-Colonial Economic Development in South-Eastern Nigeria


David Northrup - 1978
    

Kaidara


Amadou Hampâté Bâ - 1978
    This edition includes an interview with the author, explanatory notes, and critical and biographical essays.

The Last Adventurer


Rolf Steiner - 1978
    

The Forgotten Frontier: A History of the Sixteenth-Century Ibero-African Frontier


Andrew C. Hess - 1978
    Here, Andrew C. Hess considers the relations between these two dynasties in light of the social, economic, and political affairs at the frontiers between North Africa and the Iberian peninsula.