Against a backdrop of apartheid and racial violence, traumatized artist Yolanda Petersen returns from the Appalachian foothills to the land of her youth at the behest of her mother. While there Yolanda longs to reconnect with her estranged daughter, Ingrid, the product of an illegal mixed-race affair with a white man.But Ingrid is missing, and as Yolanda quickly discovers, she isn’t the only woman in Cape Town desperate to protect her own. Ingrid’s very existence is proof of a white man’s crime, and that man’s mother will do anything―even kill―to ensure the truth remains buried.An evocative debut novel set during a defining period in history, A Conspiracy of Mothers tells a gripping story of love and betrayal from multiple perspectives while deftly balancing the painful legacy of apartheid with the trials of motherhood.

    "I am here to feed hungry children in the village, because as Africans we must uplift each other."I don't understand what it means to uplift others, but I nod.I know that I can finally stand up. I will search for food. I will live.When severe draught hit her village in Zimbabwe, Elizabeth, then eight, had no idea that this moment of utter devastation would come to define her life purpose. Unable to move from hunger, she encountered a United Nations aid worker who gave her a bowl of warm porridge and saved her life. This transformative moment inspired Elizabeth to become a humanitarian, and she vowed to dedicate her life to giving back to her community, her continent, and the world. Grounded by the African concept of ubuntu—“I am because we are”—I Am a Girl from Africa charts Elizabeth’s quest in pursuit of her dream from the small village of Goromonzi to Harare, London, New York, and beyond, where she eventually became a Senior Advisor at the United Nations and launched HeForShe, one of the world’s largest global solidarity movements for gender equality. For over two decades, Elizabeth has been instrumental in creating change in communities all around the world; uplifting the lives of others, just as her life was once uplifted. The memoir brings to vivid life one extraordinary woman’s story of persevering through incredible odds and finding her true calling—while delivering an important message of hope and empowerment in a time when we need it most.

    But when he is approached in his rural village one day by Marabout Ahmed, a seemingly kind stranger and highly regarded Koranic teacher, the tides of his life turn forever. Unbeknownst to Ibrahimah's parents, when Ibrahimah is sent to join his cousin Etienne to study the Koran for a year--the local custom for many families--Ibrahimah is sent out to beg in the streets in order to line his teacher's pockets.To make it back home alive, Etienne and Ibrahimah must help one another survive both the dangers posed by Marabout and the myriad threats of the city: black market organ traders, rival packs of boys from other daaras, and mounting student protest on the streets.Drawn from real incidents, this extraordinary debut novel locates the universal through the story of two boys caught in the terrible sweep of history. Transporting us between rural and urban Senegal, No Heaven for Good Boys shows the strength that can emerge when one has no other choice but to survive.

    Following the Rwandan genocide, an idealistic group of young rebels overthrew the brutal regime in Kigali, ushering in an era of peace and stability that made Rwanda the donor darling of the West, winning comparisons with Switzerland and Singapore. But the truth was considerably more sinister.  Vividly sourcing her story with direct testimony from key participants, Wrong uses the story of the murder of Patrick Karegeya, once Rwanda’s head of external intelligence and a quicksilver operator of supple charm, to paint the portrait of a modern African dictatorship created in the chilling likeness of Paul Kagame, the president who sanctioned his former friend’s assassination.

    Hasan struggles to keep his family business afloat following the sudden death of his wife. As he begins to put his shattered life back together piece by piece, a new regime seizes power, and a wave of rising prejudice threatens to sweep away everything he has built.Present-day LONDON. Sameer, a young high-flying lawyer, senses an emptiness in what he thought was the life of his dreams. Called back to his family home by an unexpected tragedy, Sameer begins to find the missing pieces of himself not in his future plans, but in a heritage he never knew.Moving between two continents over a troubled century, We Are All Birds of Uganda is an immensely resonant novel that explores racial tensions, generational divides and what it means to belong.

    My ancestors traveled the East African desert in search of grazing land for their livestock, and the most precious resource of all—water. When they exhausted the land and the clouds disappeared from the horizon, their accumulated ancestral knowledge told them where to move next to find greener pastures. They loaded their huts and belongings onto their most obedient camels and herded their livestock to a new home.” When Shugri Said Salh was six years old, she was sent to live with her nomadic grandmother in the desert, away from the city of Mogadishu. Leaving behind her house, her parents, her father’s multiple wives, and her many siblings, she would become the last of her family to learn a once-common way of life. The desert held many risks, from drought and hunger to the threat of predators, but it also held beauty, innovation, and centuries of tradition. Shugri grew to love the freedom of roaming with her goats and the feeling of community in learning the courtship rituals, cooking songs, and poems of her people. She was even proud to face the rite of passage that all “respectable” girls undergo in Somalia, a brutal female circumcision. In time, Shugri would return to live with her siblings in the city. Ultimately, the family was forced to flee as refugees in the face of a civil war—first to Kenya, then to Canada, and finally to the United States. There, Shugri would again find herself a nomad in a strange land, learning to navigate everything from escalators to homeless shelters to, ultimately, marriage, parenthood, and nursing school. And she would approach each step of her journey with resilience and a liveliness that is all her own. At once dramatic and witty, The Last Nomad tells a story of tradition, change, and hope.

    In 1998, when Nice was six, her parents fell sick and died, and Nice and her sister Soila were taken in by their father’s brother, who had little interest in the girls beyond what their dowries might fetch. Fearing “the cut” (female genital mutilation, a painful and sometimes deadly ritualistic surgery), which was the fate of all Maasai women, Nice and Soila climbed a tree to hide.Nice hoped to find a way to avoid the cut forever, but Soila understood it would be impossible. But maybe if one of the sisters submitted, the other would be spared. After Soila chose to undergo the surgery, sacrificing herself to save Nice, their lives diverged. Soila married, dropped out of school, and had children–all in her teenage years–while Nice postponed receiving the cut, continued her education, and became the first in her family to attend college.Supported by Amref, Nice used visits home to set an example for what an uncut Maasai woman can achieve. Other women listened, and the elders finally saw the value of intact, educated girls as the way of the future. The village has since ended FGM entirely, and Nice continues the fight to end FGM throughout Africa, and the world.Nice’s journey from “heartbroken child and community outcast, to leader of the Maasai” is an inspiration and a reminder that one person can change the world–and every girl is worth saving.

    Some credit the fifteenth-century Age of Discovery and the maritime connection it established between West and East; others the accidental unearthing of the “New World.” Still others point to the development of the scientific method, or the spread of Judeo-Christian beliefs; and so on, ad infinitum. The history of Africa, by contrast, has long been relegated to the remote outskirts of our global story. What if, instead, we put Africa and Africans at the very center of our thinking about the origins of modernity?In a sweeping narrative spanning more than six centuries, Howard W. French does just that, for Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe’s dehumanizing engagement with the “dark” continent. In fact, French reveals, the first impetus for the Age of Discovery was not—as we are so often told, even today—Europe’s yearning for ties with Asia, but rather its centuries-old desire to forge a trade in gold with legendarily rich Black societies sequestered away in the heart of West Africa.Creating a historical narrative that begins with the commencement of commercial relations between Portugal and Africa in the fifteenth century and ends with the onset of World War II, Born in Blackness interweaves precise historical detail with poignant, personal reportage. In so doing, it dramatically retrieves the lives of major African historical figures, from the unimaginably rich medieval emperors who traded with the Near East and beyond, to the Kongo sovereigns who heroically battled seventeenth-century European powers, to the ex-slaves who liberated Haitians from bondage and profoundly altered the course of American history.While French cogently demonstrates the centrality of Africa to the rise of the modern world, Born in Blackness becomes, at the same time, a far more significant narrative, one that reveals a long-concealed history of trivialization and, more often, elision in depictions of African history throughout the last five hundred years. As French shows, the achievements of sovereign African nations and their now-far-flung peoples have time and again been etiolated and deliberately erased from modern history. As the West ascended, their stories—siloed and piecemeal—were swept into secluded corners, thus setting the stage for the hagiographic “rise of the West” theories that have endured to this day.“Capacious and compelling” (Laurent Dubois), Born in Blackness is epic history on the grand scale. In the lofty tradition of bold, revisionist narratives, it reframes the story of gold and tobacco, sugar and cotton—and of the greatest “commodity” of them all, the twelve million people who were brought in chains from Africa to the “New World,” whose reclaimed lives shed a harsh light on our present world.

    The Swarts are gathering for Ma's funeral. The younger generation, Anton and Amor, detest everything the family stand for -- not least the failed promise to the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. After years of service, Salome was promised her own house, her own land... yet somehow, as each decade passes, that promise remains unfulfilled.The narrator's eye shifts and blinks: moving fluidly between characters, flying into their dreams; deliciously lethal in its observation. And as the country moves from old deep divisions to its new so-called fairer society, the lost promise of more than just one family hovers behind the novel's title.In this story of a diminished family, sharp and tender emotional truths hit home. Confident, deft and quietly powerful, The Promise is literary fiction at its finest.

    . . The heart-stopping and definitive account of the rescue mission to free hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls, and their heroic survival, after their 2014 kidnapping spurred a global social media campaign that prompted the intervention of seven militaries, showing us the blinding possibilities—for good and ill—of activism in our interconnected world. In the spring of 2014, American celebrities and their Twitter followers unwittingly helped turn a group of teenagers into a central prize in the global War on Terror by retweeting #BringBackOurGirls, a call for the release of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls who’d been kidnapped by the little-known Islamist sect Boko Haram. With just four words, their tweets launched an army of would-be liberators, spies, and glory hunters into an obscure conflict that few understood, in a remote part of Nigeria that had just barely begun to use the internet.When hostage talks and military intervention failed, the schoolgirls were forced to take survival into their own hands. As their days in captivity dragged into years, the young women learned to withstand hunger, disease, and torment, and became witnesses and victims of unspeakable brutality. Many of the girls were Christians who refused to take the path offered them—converting to Islam.While the world’s most sophisticated surveillance technology sputtered out, a covert Swiss agency and its Nigerian recruits worked painstakingly in the shadows to free the girls. A powerful work of investigative journalism, Bring Back Our Girls unfolds across four continents, from the remote forests of northern Nigeria to the White House; from clandestine meetings in Khartoum safe houses to century-old luxury hotels on picturesque lakes in the Swiss Alps. It is a cautionary tale that plumbs the promise and peril of an era whose politics are fueled by the power of hashtag advocacy—revealing how wildfire social media activism is reshaping our relationship to global politics.

    Suspended for a few seconds, they float in their own space and time with their own hidden prospects. For want of a better term, we call these moments “magical” and when we remember them they are cloaked in a halo of special meaning.’For 14-year-old Johnny Clegg, hearing Zulu street music as plucked on the strings of a guitar by Charlie Mzila one evening outside a corner café in Bellevue, Johannesburg, was one such ‘magical’ moment. The success story of Juluka and later Savuka, and the cross-cultural celebration of music, language, story, dance and song that stirred the hearts of millions across the world, is well documented. Their music was the soundtrack to many South Africans’ lives during the turbulent 70s and 80s as the country moved from legislated oppression to democratic freedom. It crossed borders, boundaries and generations, resonating around the world and back again. Less known is the story of how it all began and developed. Scatterling of Africa is that origin story, as Johnny Clegg wrote it and wanted it told. It is the story of how the son of an unconventional mother, grandson of Jewish immigrants, came to realise that identity can be a choice, and home is a place you leave and return to as surely as the seasons change.

    Falling in love with his roommate was certainly not on the agenda, but fear and shame force him to hide his love and true self.Back home, weighed down by the expectations of their wealthy and powerful family, the love of Oto's twin sister wavers and, as their world begins to crumble around them, Oto must make drastic choices that will alter the family's lives for ever.Richly imagined with art, proverbs and folk tales, this moving and modern novel follows Oto through life at home and at boarding school in Nigeria, through the heartbreak of living as a boy despite their profound belief they are a girl, and through a hunger for freedom that only a new life in the United States can offer.An Ordinary Wonder is a powerful coming-of-age story that explores complex desires as well as challenges of family, identity, gender and culture, and what it means to feel whole.

    One year later, the Fordham family arrived as Seventh-day Adventist missionaries.Fordham narrates her childhood with lush, observant prose that is at times quite funny. She describes her family’s insular faith, her mother’s Finnish heritage, the growing conflict between her parents, the dangerous politics of Uganda, and the magic of living in a house in the jungle. Driver ants stream through their bedrooms, mambas drop out of the stove, and monkeys steal their tomatoes.At its heart, Wait for God to Notice is a memoir about mothers and daughters. As teens, Fordham and her sister, Sonja, considered their mother overly cautious. After their mother dies of cancer, the author begins to wonder who her mother really was. As she recalls her childhood in Uganda―the way her mother killed snakes, sweet-talked soldiers, and sold goods on the black market―Fordham understands that the legacy her mother left her daughters is one of courage and capability.Fordham's vivid, unsentimental prose observes how it is possible to love someone you disagree with and how a place that doesn't belong to you can turn you into who you are. Reminiscent of The Poisonwood Bible and Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Wait for God to Notice, explores the complex terrain of being a mzungu in Africa, and ultimately being a stranger everywhere on Earth.

    Evil is at play in a South African game reserve.A poacher vanishes into thin air, defying logic and baffling ace tracker Mia Greenaway.Meanwhile Captain Sannie van Rensburg, still reeling from a personal tragedy, is investigating the disappearance of two young girls who locals fear have been abducted for use in sinister traditional medicine practices.But poachers are also employing witchcraft, paying healers for potions they believe will make them invisible and bulletproof.When a tourist goes missing, Mia and Sannie must work together to confront their own demons and challenge everything they believe, and to follow a bloody trail that seems to vanish at every turn.

    The land has become what many call "a house without windows." Through illustrations, photos, and videos (activated via QR codes), this comic takes readers into the heart of this "forgotten crisis." Central African artist Didier Kassai and British photojournalist Marc Ellison guide readers through the harsh stories of Bangui’s children—slaving in diamond minds, housed in refugee camps—and showcase their inspirational courage in the face of unimaginable poverty.

    On the hunt for a cool, ooey, gooey, mud bath, he gets his snout stuck in one mess after another. Finally, with help from his new friends, Obi realizes that teamwork and some fancy moves - might just help beat the heat.Inspired by an actual event, Obi's Mud Bath includes Common Core Connections and explores themes of perseverance, friendship, and the power of believing.** A portion of this book's proceeds will be donated to Water.org, an organization which empowers families around the world with access to safe water and sanitation.

    When he was seven years old Hyppolite lost many members of his extended family and witnessed the murder of his beloved father.Born in a mud hut without shoes, water or power and often hungry, he struggled after the genocide to gain an education and to learn to forgive the killers.By the age of thirty he had graduated from university in Rwanda and worked as a journalist and radio presenter, a playwright and a theatre director.He raised enough money to travel to England and achieved a Masters Degree in Sociology from Bristol University.He started a Foundation for Peace in Rwanda and travelled to America to deliver a series of lectures at universities along the East Coast of America, including Harvard, using theatre to address issues of hatred and racism being transmitted from one generation to the next, looking from the perspective of a genocide survivor, who was also a sociologist and an artist, at how we influence people’s attitudes to change.In 2019, Hyppolite became an international news item when he performed a hundred-day walk across 1,500 kilometres of Rwanda to mark the 25th anniversary of the genocide, inviting people to join him and to share their stories of peace and forgiveness.

    Have you ever dreamed of traveling and living in different parts of the world for weeks to months or even years at a time—without breaking your bank?From languid lunches on sun-dappled terraces amidst pink bougainvillea vine overlooking the azure blue of the Mediterranean Sea…to sipping endless cups of cay while wandering the markets of Istanbul…to exploring sites of mysticism, ritual, and power of ancient Egypt while floating down the Nile…Many people dream of experiencing the beauty of the differences in culture, language, and geography around the globe; but fears, doubts, and myths prevent them from taking that leap.If this is you, then...It’s time to ditch short holiday travels packed with fast-paced itineraries and bucket-lists where the mantra is “more is better.” Instead, it’s time to go slow and travel deep where the mantra is “less is more.”In The Art of Slow Travel, seasoned slow world traveler Bhavana Gesota breaks it down in a step-by-step manner how anyone armed with an independent spirit can make their dream of slow world travel come true for less money.Whether you embark on a journey of your dreams for two weeks or two months or two years, in this book you will discover:- the conscious slow travel mindset- how to plan your travel budget & choose your destinations- ways to make money while traveling & volunteer- all about overland travel & budget airfares- cultivating cultural sensitivity & diving into the local lingo- ways to make friends & connect with the local community- the challenges & how to beat the travel blues…morePacked with travel anecdotes, tips to travel smart and spend less, The Art of Slow Travel is an unusual guide that encourages an outlook of responsible travel, discovery, and personal growth.

    There is grace and possibility in even the bleakest of places—a triumphant journey toward inner happiness—an African heart with an American dream."Whole Heart" is an honest and inspiring memoir that acknowledges pain and will move you to tears, but eventually, it will get your heart filled with hope, joy, and aspiration. This is an inspiring true story that proves darkness can lead to light and joy is possible on the other side of pain.In this moving memoir, Michelle Felix opens her whole heart and recounts her life, starting from her childhood in Africa to her transitions and current life in America. During her childhood, Michelle had her world turned upside down, as she was forced to face several family issues that deeply affected her and made her feel stuck in a cycle of pain, regret, and immense grief. However, even with the hurt that painted her childhood, Michelle is determined to find healing and turn her pain into purpose, even when she sometimes feels weighed down by the complexities of her past.This memoir offers an inspiring and intimate look into the life of a girl who fought her way through loss, uncertainty, and rejection. It tells the story of author Michelle Felix's incredible journey of perseverance and redemption. If you have ever felt alone, worthless, lost, or as though you can't rise from the ashes of the pain of your life, this memoir is for you.

    Or they were chronicles of war and poverty--“poverty porn.” But now, curator Catherine E. McKinley draws on her extensive collection of historical and contemporary photos to present a visual history spanning a hundred-year arc (1870–1970) of what is among the earliest photography on the continent. These images tell a different story of African women: how deeply cosmopolitan and modern they are in their style; how they were able to reclaim the tools of the colonial oppression that threatened their selfhood and livelihoods.Featuring works by celebrated African masters, African studios of local legend, and anonymous artists, The African Lookbook captures the dignity, playfulness, austerity, grandeur, and fantasy-making of African women across centuries. McKinley also features photos by Europeans--most starkly, striking nudes--revealing the relationships between white men and the Black female sitters where, at best, a grave power imbalance lies. It's a bittersweet truth that when there is exploitation there can also be profound resistance expressed in unexpected ways--even if it's only in gazing back. These photos tell the story of how the sewing machine and the camera became powerful tools for women's self-expression, revealing a truly glorious display of everyday beauty.

    

    As a baby, she was abandoned at a roadside in the Ugandan heat, and miraculously found by a passerby. By divine guidance, Bharti's adoptive mother was led to her hospital cot and welcomed Bharti into their Punjabi-Sikh family. Despite experiencing sexism and racism as an Asian-African girl, and developing an incurable skin condition, Bharti found hope through the fear and prejudice.Then, in 1972 when Idi Amin expelled Asians from Uganda, Bharti's family were forced to flee to the UK. She remembers the horrific moment when her adoptive mother was ordered, at gunpoint, to abandon Bharti because of the color of her skin. With incredible courage, she refused, risking their lives to protect Bharti as her own.Throughout her struggles, Bharti retained faith in a divine power within all of us that gives us strength, protects us and loves us unconditionally. Years later, now a social worker specializing in child protection, Bharti lives in the UK with an adopted daughter of her own and has found her true purpose and sense of self-worth.

    Black was different though; it came announced. Black came with expectations, of rhythm and other things that might trip me up.' Imani is a foundling. Rescued as a baby and raised by nuns on a remote Northumbrian island, she grows up with an ever-increasing feeling of displacement. Full of questions, Imani turns to her shadow, Amarie, and her friend, Harold. When Harold can't find the answers, she puts it down to what the nuns call her "greater purpose". At nineteen, Imani answers a phone call that will change her life: she is being called to Accra after the sudden death of her biological mother. Past, present, faith and reality are spun together in this enthralling debut. Following her transition from innocence to understanding, Imani's experience illuminates the stories we all tell to make ourselves whole.

    Coming to power in 1983, Sankara set his sights on combating social injustice, poverty, and corruption in his country, fighting for women's rights, direct forms of democracy, economic sovereignty, and environmental justice.Drawing on government archival sources and over a hundred interviews with Sankara's family members, friends, and closest revolutionary colleagues, Brian J. Peterson details Sankara's political career and rise to power, as well as his assassination at age 37 in 1987, in a plot led by his close friend Blaise Compaoré.Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa offers a unique, critical appraisal of Sankara and explores why he generated such enthusiasm and hope in Burkina Faso and beyond, why he was such a polarizing figure, how his rivals seized power from him, and why T-shirts sporting his image still appear on the streets today.

    

    

    Instead, he was irresistibly drawn to it. As a volunteer at Imfolozi Nature Reserve, close encounters with animals taught him to 'see' with his heart and thus began a spiritual awakening.Drawing from his Zulu culture and a yearning to better understand human's relationship to nature, Sicelo has forged a new path to nature with an immersive, respectful and transformative way of being in the wilderness. As humanity hurtles into the anthropogenic 21st century, Black Lion is an urgent reminder of how much we need wilderness for our emotional and spiritual survival.'A brave account of a natural disaster, and of achieving reconciliation with the predatoriness of life.' Richard Mabey on Mbatha's essay, Letting Go.

    As the tracker and the tracked, Jon reveals how the stories we tell each other, and the stories spinning in our heads, can be moulded into innovation, love and co-operation — or harnessed to launch armies. Seeking escape from the confusion we create for ourselves and our neighbours with our think-too-much-know-it-all brains, Jon finds liberation within a natural world that spins no fiction.Set in a high-adventure narrative on the unforgiving savannah, Tracking Lions, Myth, and Wilderness in Samburu explores the aboriginal wisdoms that endowed our Stone Age ancestors with the power to survive – and how, since then, myth, art, music, dance, and ceremony have often been hijacked and distorted within our urban, scientific, oil-soaked world.

    He didn’t understand the politics, but an uncle appeared, a family meeting was held, then they were fleeing genocide. They were under gunfire, soldiers in pursuit. Everywhere were bodies, hunger, that smell. Stalked by terror, Obadiah kept moving through unrelenting danger and the darkest despair. He was sustained by faith and the philosophy of Ubuntu — finding one’s self through others. But not even escape led to safety, as Obadiah had to face the American refugee detention system. Die Walking is one boy’s horrific story of shared humanity in a chaotic world.

    

    Unlike flies, these butterflies are created to live in democratic gardens of beauty, freedom, justice and good citizenship. Our mission, as educators and writers, is to teach this generation of hope and peace to see the world and life with the eyes of butterflies. Our task number one is to stop seeing our country through the lens of blind and filthy flies and to create a suitable environment for our national butterflies to liven to dream, and to fly" The author.

    

    

    Through Nweke, a respected, hot-tempered, and stubborn man, his relationship with his Ikenga, his family, his best friend, and his town, we see the many far-reaching consequences, some good, others devastating, of what rose from the embers of an interrupted cultural system.The Embers of Tradition illuminates the beauty and gore of foundational Igbo culture, and the changes through the ages, leaving one with a faint nostalgia for an uncolonized evolution. To remain relevant in a changing world, will Nweke do the unthinkable?

    

    This is the untold story of how, over a few vital years, African Independence was strangled at birth.In 1958 in Accra, Ghana, the Hands Off Africa conference brought together the leading figures of African independence in a public show of political strength and purpose. It was inspired by the example of Ghana itself which, under the charismatic leadership of Kwame Nkrumah, had just thrown off the British colonial yoke - the first African nation to do so. It was moment heady with promise for independence movements across Africa, and for all those who believed colonialism was a moral aberration.Among the supporters of African independence were some of the leading figures of the American Civil Rights movement. Malcolm X was in Accra and Martin Luther King used Nkrumah's speech as the basis for his own "Free At Last" speech, so clear were the parallels between their own struggle for political equality in the US with that of the African nations. W. E. B. Du Bois moved to Ghana, inspired by the future of independent Africa. Yet among the many official messages of support received by the conference the United States was conspicuously quiet, despite its historic and public opposition to colonialism. Vice President Nixon did attend the celebrations in Ghana and asked a group of black people, "How does it feel to be free?"They answered: "We wouldn't know. We're from Alabama".The conference was also attended by a slew of strange societies, many of which were fronts, and behind them was the CIA. The CIA was in favor of the end of the British Empire but a pan-African independence movement, one susceptible to Soviet entreaties, looked like a security threat. Through original research and unparalleled insight, Susan Williams reveals how the CIA's baleful influence was felt from South Africa to the Congo as the agency prepared to move in as Africa's colonizers moved out.

    When the kingdom is threatened, he puts his life on the line to protect it and earns the moniker ‘Scar’. However, he is betrayed, and his heart hardens. He becomes fixated on claiming the throne, even if it means eliminating his ungrateful brother.First, he has to go through the tempting siren, Pacca, who is determined to save him. The pretty wildcat doesn’t realise he’s a lost cause. But they’re going to have fun on this crazy ride to the top. There’s nothing left to lose.

    

    This is the little-known account of the CFA Franc and economic imperialism. The CFA Franc was created in 1945, binding fourteen African states and split into two monetary zones. Why did French colonial authorities create it and how does it work? Why was independence not extended to monetary sovereignty for former French colonies? Through an exploration of the genesis of the currency and an examination of how the economic system works, the authors seek to answer these questions and more. As protests against the colonial currency grow, the need for myth-busting on the CFA Franc is vital and this exposé of colonial infrastructure proves that decolonization is unfinished business.

    The violence claimed more than 300 lives and caused damage of R50 billion.The three authors were on the scene covering all aspects of the violence from its inception which began as protests against Zuma's incarceration before it spiraled into widespread looting and violence which was later labelled an insurrection.Includes dramatic detail of what went down in hotspot areas, as well as what happened behind the scenes politically, and how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.

    The Future God of Love is a romance fantasy, set in an African world where stories are essential for the survival of humanity.Jamaaro, a struggling storyteller, is the future god of love and must create a story every full moon for the prosperity of his town.When he falls in love with a strange woman, having known loneliness all his life, he ignores the clues that she might not be what she seems.

    Obedience their only defence. Whisked to picturesque Valletta, a lonely nurse met her soul connection. It set the bar in a stirring plot of spiritual and physical survival as a determined warlord in Africa and a cunning wife in America trapped them. The healing sands of Iraq, their only hope. Passionate about her work, war-torn South Sudan offered Sonia Main peace. When a man from her past confronted her once more, she had a choice to make. A choice that would influence her life.Could Sonia let go of the past and see a new future?Would her dreams continue to haunt her? Or would the warm sun of Africa burn away her fears? Curt McGee was a man bound by honour and duty. It took him away from home for long periods of time.Caught in infidelity, Curt's wife’s thinking left him astounded, shocked even. His children prey to an unthinkable enemy. Would he get beyond his wife's betrayal? Could he save his children?What decisions should he make? Co-workers devised a plan: book a flight to enjoy a weekend on Malta. An island in the Mediterranean Sea that offered tranquillity and peace to weary souls.Here, two worlds connect, and the result would change them both for eternity.Meeting by chance, love confronted them, a love so great that they could not deny it. But time played a trick and demanded a price. A price so high that it would strip them of everything before they could experience the joy of a future.Obedience was better than sacrifice, revealed the pages of the Holy book. Would they yield or follow their own way?They could not run or hide from the onslaught. Their enemies' attacks growing in intensity. Crafty tricks added to the confusion, their fears real. It stripped them of their hopes and dreams. They could only go one way.When Tau Gbadamosi met Sonia, he had a tough time to understand his feelings. War ravished his country. The enormous plight for help too great for one man or one fight. Faced with loyalty, he had to decide. A decision that would cost him. Would he fail the test?Africa's hopes and dreams burned brightly in the harsh African sun. Poverty and lack the driving force for many ‘do-gooders’. It left the continent in a starving grip. But when a warlord sets his sight on the Red Cross nurse, all hell broke loose. No one could stand in his way. Only God could stop him.Lover of my soulOh, my Sovereign Lord,I bless your Holy name.Your Kingdom is eternalYour words are priceless as pearls.Your favour is beyond any riches.Oh Lord, my Father,Perfect is your timing.

    

    Some have been physical ones, but some have been bolder and required more of myself. When Englishwoman Frances McDonald sets up home in a remote South African hamlet in the shadow of the Hex River Mountains, she is regarded with suspicion by the community. Confined by a marriage of convenience, she seeks an outlet by learning the local language, teaching art, and exhibiting her paintings of the stunning veld landscape. Soon the spectre of war threatens to divide not only the country but the town itself and scupper Frances's hard-won acceptance.While her husband leaves to fight for the Allies, Frances chances to meet a former love. The bright joy of that unexpected reunion is clouded by a day that will change her life. Out of the smoke and ash of a shocking fire, she is propelled on a journey that will take her from the arid veld to the bright lights of London and beyond.

    It traces the rise of a predatory state during the second civil war (1983-2005) and its transformation into a violent Dinka ethnocracy after independence that waged genocide against non-Dinka civilians in the third civil war (2013-)"--

    Among other troubles, she was molested as a child and the only thing that got her through her childhood sane was her best friend, Vincent, who later became her fiancé. Then he died a month after their engagement, and she had to start the next chapter of her life alone as an international student in New York. Her plan was simple. Get over her dead fiancé while getting a master’s degree in the USA. But during her first thirty minutes in the land of the free, she supposedly became engaged to America’s beloved baseball star, Warren McAllister. Now Twitter is going crazy with #whoisMaKemah?

    'A very funny, intelligent, deliberately and engagingly resistant, and moving piece of writing' Amit ChaudhuriA 'recovering writer' - his first novel having been littered with typos and selling only fifty copies - Frank Jasper is plucked from obscurity in Port Jumbo in Nigeria by Mrs Kirkpatrick, a white woman and wife of an American professor, to attend the prestigious William Blake Program for Emerging Writers in Boston.Once there, however, it becomes painfully clear that he and the other Fellows are expected to meet certain obligations as representatives of their 'cultures.' His colleagues, veterans of residencies in Europe and America, know how to play up to the stereotypes expected of them, but Frank isn't interested in being the African Writer at William Blake - any anyway, there is another Fellow, Barongo Akello Kabumba, who happily fills that role.Eventually expelled from the fellowship for 'non-performance' and 'non-participation, ' Frank Jasper sets off on trip to visit his father's college friend in Nebraska - where he learns not only surprising truths about his father, but also how to parlay his experiences into a lucrative new career once he returns to Nigeria: as a commentator on American life...Seesaw is an energetic comedy of cultural dislocation - and in its humour, intelligence and piety-pricking, it is a refreshing and hugely enjoyable act of literary rebellion.

    A woman caught in the crossfire.Ray Okon, a low-ranking DSS analyst is frustrated at being stuck in a desk job. He’d rather be in the field, experiencing the adrenaline rush of catching the bad guys.When the love of his life, Loretta Olawale, rejects his marriage proposal, he has no choice but to move on and bury himself in his work...until the ties that bind them brings them together in the cruellest way possible.As he and his Homicide and Anti-Drug Trafficking Unit track down a deadly criminal cartel at the centre of Abuja city, Ray finds himself thrust back into Loretta’s life. But this time, she is in grave danger, and time is running out. Ray finds himself in a race against time to unravel the case and save Loretta's life. But as buried secrets and lies surface, they are entangled in a sinister game of blood and death.

    If they get it wrong, then debt crises can bring progress to a halt. But if it's done right, investment happens and conditions improve.African countries are seeking calmer capital, to raise living standards and give their economies a competitive edge. The African debt landscape has changed radically in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Since the clean slate of extensive debt relief, states have sought new borrowingopportunities from international capital markets and emerging global powers like China. The new debt composition has increased risk, exacerbated by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic: richer countries borrowed at rock-bottom interest rates, while Africa faced an expensive jump in indebtedness.The escalating debt burden has provoked calls by the G20 for suspension of debt payments. But Africa's debt today is highly complex, and owed to a wider range of lenders. A new approach is needed, and could turn crisis into opportunity. Urgent action by both lenders and borrowers can reduce risk, while carefully preserving market access; and smart deployment of private finance can provide the scale of investment needed to achieve development goals and tackle the climate emergency.

    

    Susan Haig has lost one son in the war and seen her other son declared ‘unfit for duty’. Nyanye Maseka has fled with her sister to a guerrilla camp in Mozambique, her home village destroyed, her mother missing. Beth Lytton is a nun in a church mission in an African Reserve, watching her adopted country tear itself apart.The three women have nothing in common. Yet the events of war conspire to draw them into each other’s lives in a way that none of them could have imagined. This absorbing and sensitive novel develops and intertwines their stories, showing us the ugliness of war for women caught up in it and reminding us that, in the end, we all depend on each other.For a VIDEO on the book (readings, and an author interview), see YouTube under book title/author name

    This is the story of Ndongo Passy and Grekpoubou, the two widows of Lidou. Following their husband’s sudden and unexplained death, they find themselves fighting tooth and nail for all that is important to them. A playful, bittersweet, story full of dry wit and local colour, set against a backdrop of political instability, corruption and the friction between the old and the new.

    Years later, though he has passed away, Ruru goes in search of signs of his life in his adopted country.She finds it in his widow and his ‘pillow books’ – journals he kept, coming to terms with his mortality.Struck by the parallels with her teenage letters to her late mother, she reads to find answers to her questions: Who was he? Why did he not return?

    In combining the struggle against climate breakdown with the fight for economic and social justice, the Green New Deal framing makes a long overdue case for a holistic, proactive economic, social, cultural and political response to climate change in the Global North. However, unless grounded in principles of global justice, the promise of green jobs and infrastructure in the Global North could simply mean a continuation of colonial patterns of inequality and exploitation around the world. What would it mean for the Green New Deal to be global? How can we think beyond the boundaries of national politics? What would it take for the transition to democratic, decarbonised, resilient and reparative systems to work for the global many, not the few? Perspectives on a Global Green New Deal, published by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung and The Leap tackles these questions head on. Harpreet Kaur Paul and Dalia Gebrial bring together climate justice insights experts from around the world, to explore the key themes that will define the future of any equitable and just global green new deal.

    But what of the past half-century of protest poetry in South Africa, a rich tradition born in response to colonialism, and fed by apartheid and a faltering democracy?In Years of Fire and Ash: South African Poems of Decolonisation, over fifty years of protest poetry are gathered in a single volume, bringing together some of the most remarkable and thought-provoking poems that have emerged from struggle. The animating impulse behind this collection of old and new voices is 'decolonisation', a term which has regained prominence over the last few years. It allows us to perceive how different South African poets have placed their work in the world, and how that work might relate to the struggle for radical social transformation.

    

    Shepp saw similarities between his revolutionary hero and John Coltrane, one of the most influential jazz musicians of the era. Later, the esteemed trumpeter Miles Davis echoed Shepp's sentiment, recognizing that Coltrane's music represented the very passion, rage, rebellion, and love that Malcolm X preached.Soundtrack to a Movement examines the link between the revolutionary Black Islam of the post-WWII generation and jazz music. It argues that from the late 1940s and '50s though the 1970s, Islam rose in prominence among African Americans in part because of the embrace of the religion among jazz musicians. The book demonstrates that the values that Islam and jazz shared-Black affirmation, freedom, and self-determination-were key to the growth of African American Islamic communities, and that it was jazz musicians who led the way in shaping encounters with Islam as they developed a Black Atlantic "cool" that shaped both Black religion and jazz styles.Soundtrack to a Movement demonstrates how by expressing their values through the rejection of systemic racism, the construction of Black notions of masculinity and femininity, and the development of an African American religious internationalism, both jazz musicians and Black Muslims engaged with a global Black consciousness and interconnected resistance movements in the African diaspora and Africa.

    This introduction and overview of African history and politics since decolonization emphasises throughout, the diversity of the continent. Organised thematically to include chapters on decolonization and its legacies, external influences, economics, political systems, inter-African relations, crises, conflicts and conflict management, and Africa's external relations, Martin Welz strikes a fine balance between the use of contextual information, analysis, case studies and examples with theoretical debates in development, politics and global policy. Accessible to students at all levels, it counters histories which offer reductive explanations of complex issues, and offers new insights into the role African actors have played in influencing international affairs beyond the continent.

    Only the Sudanese and Zulu campaigns saw a greater loss of life, both for the British and the indigenous population. Like the Zulus, the Asante were a warrior nation who offered a tough adversary for the British regulars - they were respected for their martial skills and bravery. And yet these wars have rarely been written about and are little understood. That is why Stephen Manning's vivid, detailed new history of this neglected colonial conflict is of such value.In the war of 1823-6 the British were defeated - the British governor's head was severed and his skull was taken to the Asante king who made a cast of gold and this trophy was paraded once a year during an Asante ceremony. The years 1873-4 witnessed the brilliance of Sir Garnet Wolseley in overcoming the logistical problems of sending a large British expedition deep into the jungle where it faced not only a formidable foe but a climate so unforgiving that the region became known as 'The White Man's Grave'. Finally, the 1900 campaign culminated in the epic siege of the British fort in Kumasi which must rank as one of the great Victorian escapades alongside the more famous sieges of Peking and Mafikeng.Stephen Manning's account, which is based on Asante as well as British sources, offers a fascinating view from both sides of one of the most remarkable and protracted struggles of the colonial era.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping's signature foreign policy endeavor, BRI has the potential to meet developing countries' needs and spur economic growth, but its implementation creates risks that outweigh its benefits. Unless the United States offers an effective alternative, China could reorient global trade networks, set technical standards that would disadvantage non-Chinese companies, lock countries into carbon-intensive power generation, increase its political influence over countries, and acquire power projection capabilities for its military. The COVID-19 pandemic has made a U.S. response more urgent as the global economic contraction has accelerated the reckoning with BRI-related debt. China's Belt and Road: Implications for the United States proposes that the United States respond to BRI by putting forward an affirmative agenda of its own, drawing on its strengths and coordinating with allies and partners to promote sustainable, secure, and green development.

    From A for Agbada to Z for Zuma, this book takes young readers on an exciting adventure to discover the people, places, lifestyles, and language of life in an African country while reinforcing early learning concepts like counting, rhyming, and of course, the alphabets! Beautiful illustrations by Gabby Zermeño bring to life the beauty, wonder, and culture of this vast, diverse, and vibrant country.

    While these workers appear isolated from the Global North, they are in fact deeply integrated into global commodity chains and essential to the maintenance of global capitalism. Looking at contemporary case studies in India, the Philippines and South Africa, this book affirms the significance of political and economic representation to the struggles of workers against deepening levels of poverty and inequality that oppress the majority of people on the planet. Immanuel Ness shows that workers are eager to mobilise to improve their conditions, and can achieve lasting gains if they have sustenance and support from political organisations. From the Dickensian industrial zones of Delhi to the agrarian oligarchy on the island of Mindanao, a common element remains – when workers organise they move closer to the realisation of socialism, solidarity and equality.

    Written by the polymath and physician ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī, and intended for the Abbasid caliph al-Nāṣir, the first part of the book offers detailed descriptions of Egypt’s geography, plants, animals, and local cuisine, including a recipe for a giant picnic pie made with three entire roast lambs and dozens of chickens. ʿAbd al-Laṭīf’s text is also a pioneering work of ancient Egyptology, with detailed observations of Pharaonic monuments, sculptures, and mummies. An early and ardent champion of archaeological conservation, ʿAbd al-Laṭīf condemns the vandalism wrought by tomb-robbers and notes with distaste that Egyptian grocers price their goods with labels written on recycled mummy-wrappings.The book’s second half relates his horrific eyewitness account of the great famine that afflicted Egypt in the years 597–598/1200–1202. ʿAbd al-Laṭīf was a keen observer of humanity, and he offers vivid first-hand depictions of starvation, cannibalism, and a society in moral free-fall.A Physician on the Nile contains great diversity in a small compass, distinguished by the acute, humane, and ever-curious mind of its author. It is rare to be able to hear the voice of such a man responding so directly to novelty, beauty, and tragedy.A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

    As one of the fastest expanding economies in the world, Ethiopia faces environmental pressures. In Amhara province, the last native forests surround church buildings and have been protected for centuries as miniature Gardens of Eden. Kieran’s photographic essay about these church forests has been published in part in Nature, Geo France and National Geographic as well as being awarded a Sony World Photography Award in the Landscape category. The work has also been exhibited in Los Angeles, New York and Edinburgh. The book brings together the full story and unpublished photographs, with a specially commissioned essay by Professor Mark Stoll on the spiritual roots of modern environmentalism, along with a foreword by church forest expert Dr Alemayehu Wassie Eshete. The publication of this book has supported the restoration of the Ethiopian landscape with the planting of a thousand trees in the upper Blue Nile river catchment area near Lake Tana. This is a collaboration of the local community, local scientists and the organisation Plant with Purpose.

    Concluding with theconspicuous absence of 'peace' when non-violent revolutionary political change came to Sudan in 2019, Srinivasan examines at close range why outsiders' peace projects may displace civil politics and raise the political currency of violence.This is an analysis of the perils of attempting to build a non-violent political realm through neat designs and tools of compulsion, where the end goal of peace becomes caught up in idealised constitutional texts, technocratic templates and deals on sharing spoils. When Peace Kills Politics showsthat these methods, ultimately anti-political, will be resisted--often violently--by dissatisfied local actors.

    It is an invention of European Christians for the Islamic inhabitants of Maghreb (North Africa), Andalusia (Spain), Sicily and Malta, and was sometimes use to designate all Muslims. It is derived from Mauri, the Latin name for the Berbers who lived in the Roman province of Mauretania, which ranged across modern Algeria and Morocco. Saracen was another European term used to designate Muslims, though it usually referred to the Arabic peoples of the Middle East and derives from an ancient name for the Arabs, Sarakenoi. The Muslims of those regions no more refer to themselves by that term than those of North Africa call themselves Moors. Maghreb, or al-Maghreb, is a historical term used by Arabic Muslims for the territory of coastal North Africa from Alexandria to the Atlantic Coast. It means “The West” and is used in opposition to Mashrek, “The East,” used to refer to the lands of Islam in the Middle East and north-eastern Africa. The Berbers refer to the region in their own language as Tamazgha. In a limited, precise sense it can also refer to the Kingdom of Morocco, the proper name of which is al-Mamlakah al-Maghribiyyah, “Kingdom of the West.”Ethnically the people of North Africa are mostly of mixed Arab-Berber descent, and the Berbers are a proud and noble group of peoples dating from ancient times. The term Berber is again a foreign designation, coming from the Greek barbaroi, meaning stranger. By implication, as far as the Greeks and Romans were concerned, the word indicated the people were uncivilized. From this comes the archaic English name Barbary, used to designate the north coast of Africa and still used in “Barbary ape” and the breed of horse known as the Barb. The Berbers call themselves Imazighen, though in truth they are a grouping of different tribes rather than a strictly homogenous group. There are at least 12 linguistic families spoken in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, parts of Mali, Burkina Faso and Mauritania. The last, a large republic on the north-western African coast, shares the same name as the ancient Roman province, though they are unconnected: its former French rulers gave it the name.In ancient times the Berbers established powerful and important kingdoms in northern Africa and the kingdoms of Syphax and Gala ruled Numidia – now part of Algeria – until conquered by Carthage. After the fall of Carthage, the Berber kingdom of Mauritania – not to be confused with the country created by the French – dominated North-western Africa before itself succumbing to the Romans in the 1st century BCE. Christian Europe has generally given the Berbers a reputation as a wild and barbarous people, whereas in fact they have had a long, sophisticated and cultured history, and under Roman rule they made great contributions to civilization. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, was a Berber and one of the greatest philosophers and theologians not only of his own time, but of all time. The theologian Tertullian also hailed from North Africa, and the Berbers produced three popes: Victor I, Miltiades and Gelasius I. Arius, the priest who denied the divinity of Christ and gave his name to a form of Christianity that rivalled Catholicism for more than 400 years, called North Africa home.In the 5th century, the Northwest African Coast was conquered by the Vandals, a Germanic tribe originating in Eastern Europe, but they in turn succumbed to the Byzantine Empire in the 6th century. The whole of the African coast from the Sinai Peninsula to the Straits of Gibraltar remained under Byzantine rule until the 7th century, when a major geopolitical change elevated the Berbers once again to the status of regional powers and ushered in the domination of Islam across the region.

    In the last decades of the nineteenth century, Europeans had displaced Algerians from the colony's best agricultural land and planted grapevines. Soon enough, wine was the primary export of a region whose mostly Muslim inhabitants didn't drink alcohol.Settlers made fortunes while drawing large numbers of Algerians into salaried work for the first time. But the success of Algerian wine resulted in friction with French producers, challenging the traditional view that imperial possessions should complement, not compete with, the metropole. By the middle of the twentieth century, amid the fight for independence, Algerians had come to see the rows of vines as an especially hated symbol of French domination. After the war, Algerians had to decide how far they would go to undo the transformations the colonists had wrought--including the world's fourth-biggest wine industry. Owen White examines Algeria's experiment with nationalized wine production in worker-run vineyards, the pressures that resulted in the failure of that experiment, and the eventual uprooting of most of the country's vines.With a special focus on individual experiences of empire, from the wealthiest Europeans to the poorest laborers in the fields, The Blood of the Colony shows the central role of wine in the economic life of French Algeria and in its settler culture. White makes clear that the industry left a long-term mark on the development of the nation.