Africa Book Centre
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NEW TITLES AT THE AFRICA BOOK CENTRE - Number 557, 28 November 2012
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37910 Banham, Martin, Gibbs, James & Osofisan, Femi (Eds.)
AFRICAN THEATRE: Festivals
During the last fifty years, large sums of money, huge resources of labour and
vast amounts of creative energy have been invested in international theatre
festivals in Africa. Under banners such as 'Reclaiming the African Past' and
'African Renaissance', the festival participants have used the performing arts
to address a variety of topical issues and to confront images embedded by a
century of patronising colonial expositions. The themes indicate the desire to
take history by the forelock, challenge perceptions and transform communities.
Selected contents: Festivals as a strategy for the development of theatre in
Zimbabwe, 1980-2001; The legacy of Festac '77: the challenge of the Nigerian
National Theatre at Iganmu; The Dakar Festivals of 1966 & 2010; African
Renaissance between rhetoric & the aesthetics of extravagance: FESMAN 2010
-
entrapped in textuality; 8 The Pan-African Historical Theatre Festival
(Panafest) in Ghana, 1922-2010: the vision & the reality; The Jos Theatre
Festival, 2004- 2011:a theatre festival in a divided community. 172pp, UK.
JAMES
CURREY PUBLISHERS.
2012 9781847010575 Paperback GBP18.99
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37931 Beidelman, T.O.
CULTURE OF COLONIALISM: The Cultural Subjection of Ukaguru
What did it mean to be an African subject living in remote areas of Tanganyika
at the end of the colonial era? For the Kaguru of Tanganyika, it meant daily
confrontation with the black and white governmental officials tasked with
bringing this rural people into the mainstream of colonial African life. T. O.
Beidelman's detailed narrative links this administrative world to the Kaguru's
wider social, cultural, and geographical milieu, and to the political history,
ideas of indirect rule, and the white institutions that loomed just beyond
their
world. Beidelman unveils the colonial system's problems as it extended its
authority into rural areas and shows how these problems persisted even after
African independence. 328pp, USA. INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS.
2012 9780253002082 Paperback GBP19.99
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37921 Bennett, Huw
FIGHTING THE MAU MAU: The British Army and Counter-Insurgency in the Kenya
Emergency
British Army counterinsurgency campaigns were supposedly waged within the
bounds
of international law, overcoming insurgents with the minimum force necessary.
This revealing study questions what this meant for the civilian population
during the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya in the 1950s, one of Britain's most
violent decolonisation wars. For the first time Huw Bennett examines the
conduct
of soldiers in detail, uncovering the uneasy relationship between notions of
minimum force and the colonial tradition of exemplary force where harsh
repression was frequently employed as a valid means of quickly crushing
rebellion. Although a range of restrained policies such as special forces
methods, restrictive rules of engagement and surrender schemes prevented the
campaign from degenerating into genocide, the army simultaneously coerced the
population to drop their support for the rebels, imposing collective fines,
mass
detentions and frequent interrogations, often tolerating rape, indiscriminate
killing and torture to terrorise the population into submission. 290pp, UK.
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
2012 9781107656246 Paperback GBP18.99
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37926 Briggs, Philip
SOMALILAND WITH ADDIS ABABA AND EASTERN ETHIOPIA: Bradt Travel Guide
Little known to the outside world, Somaliland has much to offer the truly
intrepid traveller. This pioneering guidebook introduces one of the worlds
least
chartered travel destinations. Author Philip Briggs covers everything from the
low-key capital Hargeisa and mediaeval port of Berbera to peerless rock art
sites such as Las Geel, and the scenery and wildlife of the Daallo Escarpment,
towering 2,000m high above the pristine reefs of the Gulf of Aden. Somaliland’s
ruined cities and historical ports date back 5,000 years and have links with
ancient Egypt and Axum in northern Ethiopia, as well as the Ottoman and British
Empires. This guide offers background and practical information to every
accessible corner of the country with the only real maps in existence of its
capital and other large towns, and a section on wildlife. 192pp, UK. BRADT
PUBLICATIONS.
2012 9781841623719 Paperback GBP15.99
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37890 Burnet, Jennie E.
GENOCIDE LIVES IN US: Women, Memory, and Silence in Rwanda
In the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, Rwandan women faced the
impossibleresurrecting their lives amidst unthinkable devastation. Haunted by
memories of lost loved ones and of their own experiences of violence, women
rebuilt their lives from less than nothing. Neither passive victims nor innate
peacemakers, they traversed dangerous emotional and political terrain to emerge
as leaders in Rwanda today. This clear and engaging ethnography of survival
tackles three interrelated phenomena - memory, silence, and justice - and
probes
the contradictory roles women played in post-genocide reconciliation. 304pp,
USA. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS.
2012 9780299286446 Paperback GBP26.99
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37925 Collier, Gordon (Ed.)
FOCUS ON NIGERIA: Literature and Culture
MATATU - Journal for African Cultures and Society, 40. Studies of contemporary
Nigerian literature, a selection of short fiction and poetry, and a range of
essays on various themes of political, artistic, socio-linguistic, and
sociological interest. Contributions on theatre focus on the fool as dramatic
character and on the feminist theatre of exclusion (Tracie Uto-Ezeajugh).
Several essays examine the poetry of Hope Eghagha and the Delta writer Tanure
Ojaide. Studies of the prose fiction of Chinua Achebe, Tayo Olafioye, Uwem
Akpan, and Chimamanda Adichie are complemented by a searching exposé of the
exploitation of Ayi Kwei Armah on the part of the metropolitan publishing world
and by a recent interview with the poet Jumoko Verissimo. Traditional culture
is
considered in articles on historical sites in Ile-Ife, witchcraft in Etsako
warfare, and the Awonmili women’s collective in Awka. Linguistically oriented
studies consider political speeches, drug advertising, and Yoruba anthroponyms.
Perform-ance-focused essays focus on Emirate court spectacle (durbar), Yoruba
drum poetry in contemporary media, gospel music, indigenization and
islamization
of military music, and the role of the filmmaker. Contributions of broader
relevance deal with Islamic components of Nigerian culture, the decline of the
educational system, and the socio-economic impact of acquisitive culture.
498pp,
NETHERLANDS. RODOPI.
2012 9789042035720 Hardback GBP89.00
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37923 Crisafulli, Patricia & Redmond, Andrea
RWANDA INC.: How a Devastated Nation Became an Economic Model for the
Developing
World
Argues that seventeen years after the genocide that made Rwanda international
news, the country has achieved a miraculous turnaround. A war-torn country
filled with mass graves, it has adopted the most promising African model for
economic development, shepherded by its shrewd and decisive president, Paul
Kagame. In this compelling portrait of one of Africa's success stories,
Patricia
Crisafulli & Andrea Redmond look at Kagame's leadership and the key
elements of
the so-called Rwanda Model, including self-determination and self-sufficiency,
and their potential to challenge the old model of dependence on Western aid in
the developing world. They also explore the role of the West in assisting
Rwanda
with one of its most important goals today: to educate its young people with
nine years of compulsory schooling, and then sending the best and brightest to
U.S. colleges and universities. 256pp, UK. PALGRAVE.
2012 9780230340220 Hardback GBP16.99
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37757 Ellis, Stephen
EXTERNAL MISSION: The ANC in Exile, 1960-1990
Nelson Mandela's release from prison in February 1990 was one of the most
memorable moments of recent decades. It came a few days after the removal of
the
ban on the African National Congress; founded a century ago and outlawed in
1960, it had transferred its headquarters abroad and opened what it termed an
External Mission. For the thirty years following its banning, the ANC had
fought
relentlessly against the apartheid state. Finally voted into office in 1994,
the
ANC today regards its armed struggle as the central plank of its legitimacy.
External Mission is the first study of the ANC s period in exile, based on a
full range of sources in southern Africa and Europe. These include the ANC s
own
archives and also those of the Stasi, the East German ministry that trained the
ANC's security personnel. It reveals that the decision to create the Umkhonto
we
Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) -- a guerrilla army which later became the ANC's
armed wing -- was made not by the ANC but by its allies in the South African
Communist Party after negotiations with Chinese leader Mao Zedong. In this
impressive work, Ellis shows that many of the strategic decisions made, and
many
of the political issues that arose during the course of that protracted armed
struggle, had a lasting effect on South Africa, shaping its society even up to
the present day. 88pp, UK. HURST.
2012 9781849042628 Hardback GBP20.00
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37932 Feld, Steven
JAZZ COSMOPOLITANISM IN ACCRA: Five Musical Years in Ghana
In this remarkable book, Steven Feld, pioneer of the anthropology of sound,
listens to the vernacular cosmopolitan-ism of jazz players in Ghana. Some have
travelled widely, played with American jazz greats, and blended Coltrane with
local instruments and worldviews. Combining memoir, biography, ethnography, and
history, Feld conveys a diasporic intimacy and dialogue that contests American
nationalist and Afrocentric narratives of jazz history. His stories of Accra's
jazz cosmopolitanism feature Ghanaba/Guy Warren (1923-2008), the eccentric
drummer who befriended the likes of Charlie Parker, Max Roach, and Thelonious
Monk in the United States in the 1950s, only to return, embittered, to Ghana,
where he became the country's leading experimentalist. Others whose stories
feature prominently are Nii Noi Nortey, who fuses the legacies of the 1960s and
1970s black avant-gardes with Pan-African philosophy in sculptural shrines to
John Coltrane and Coltrane-inspired musical improvisations; the percussionist
Nii Otoo Annan, a traditional master inspired by Coltrane's drummers Elvin
Jones
and Rashied Ali; and a union of Accra truck and minibus drivers whose
squeeze-bulb honk horn music for driver funerals resonates with the jazz
funerals of New Orleans. Feld describes these artists' cosmopolitan outlook as
an acoustemology, a way of knowing the world through sound. 312pp, USA. DUKE
UNIVERSITY PRESS.
2012 9780822351627 Paperback GBP15.99
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37928 Field, Sean
ORAL HISTORY, COMMUNITY AND DEVELOPMENT: Imagining Memories in Post-Apartheid
South Africa
This book uses oral history methodology to record stories of people who
experienced the brunt of racist forced removals in the city of Cape Town, South
Africa. Through life stories and community case studies, it traces the human
impact of this disruptive, often violent feature of apartheid's social
engineering. 240pp, UK. PALGRAVE.
2012 9780230108905 Hardback GBP55.00
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37775 Frost, Diane
FROM THE PIT TO THE MARKET: Politics and the Diamond Economy in Sierra Leone
Diamonds have played an important role in the political economy of Sierra
Leone,
as was highlighted by the use of 'conflict' or 'blood' diamonds in the
decade-long civil war. Conflict diamonds were used not only by rebels, military
groups and others inside Sierra Leone and Liberia, but also by groups extending
beyond the borders of West Africa: global criminal networks, international
terror groups, and 'legitimate' transnational companies. The diamond trade in
Sierra Leone has also been subject to exploitation by global business
interests,
a form of corporate neo-colonialist predation that continues today and which
has
curbed the country's growth, while recent newspaper headlines also demonstrate
the currency of rough diamonds. Sierra Leone's diamonds have been used to
finance factions in Lebanon's civil war, criminal networks in the US and
Russia,
and al-Qaeda. The marginalization and exclusion of Sierra Leone, this book
argues, mean that it, and other such resource-rich nations, remain reliant on
aid. 248pp, UK. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS.
2012 9781847010605 Paperback GBP19.99
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37785 Gilder, Barry
SONGS AND SECRETS: South Africa from Liberation to Governance
A decade into its hard-won democracy, South Africa and its ruling party, the
ANC, have been through turbulent times: confrontation between Thabo Mbeki and
his then deputy Jacob Zuma; the dismissal of Zuma as Deputy; Zuma's defeat of
Mbeki in ANC presidential elections; and the recall of Mbeki as South African
President, are events that have left many ANC cadres politically and
emotionally
aghast. Were these events the result of personal enmity? Was the broad church
that the ANC had become to unite all forces in the struggle against apartheid
beginning to break up? Or did the roots lie in the global dynamic that allowed
South Africa its freedom as the Cold War cooled? Written in an anecdotal style,
and with a cinematic quality, Songs and Secrets explores these questions
through
the viewfinder of a former high-ranking member of the ANC's secret intelligence
wing. It follows Gilder into the ANC's military camps in Angola; to Moscow for
spycraft training; to the underground in Botswana; and into leadership
positions
in the administration of the new government. Gilder's frank, compelling memoir
explores the personal, political, psychological and historical realities that
gave birth to the new South Africa, in particular the oft-ignored conditions in
which the ANC government tried to turn apartheid around. 288pp, UK. HURST.
2012 9781849042376 Hardback GBP20.00
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37909 Heidenriech-Seleme, Lien & O'Toole, Sean (Eds.)
UBER(W)UNDEN: Art in Troubled Times
The intellectual and imaginative engagement of social trauma is presented in
this book that investigates how writers, visual artists, theatre practitioners,
musicians, filmmakers, dancers, and photographers from sub-Saharan Africa and
Germany have creatively responded to traumata. Building off a conference hosted
by the Goethe-Institut of South Africa in 2011, the book creates an open
dialogue through both words and visuals surrounding culture and conflict. The
roles of artists during crisis and social change are examined, as well as the
impact and aesthetic vocabulary that is created to react to, engage, or heal
the
trauma. 270pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA.
2012 9781431404971 Hardback GBP25.00
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37929 Kuranga, David Oladipupo
THE POWER OF INTERDEPENDENCE: Lessons from Africa
International organizations have drastically increased in number since the end
of the Second World War, while also becoming more sophisticated and advanced.
Despite this, little work has been done within international relations to
evaluate the power of these structures independent of and in relation to other
actors in the global system. This groundbreaking study assesses the impact and
power of African IOs in the international system via case studies from Togo,
Mauritania, and Sao Tomé and Príncipe, and to reasonably determine the role
they
may play in the future. 202pp, UK. PALGRAVE.
2012 9781137019950 Paperback GBP19.99
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37924 Makokha, J.K.S., Obiero, Ogone John & West-Pavlov, Russell (Eds.)
STYLE IN AFRICAN LITERATURE: Essays on Literary Stylistics and Narrative Styles
Postcolonial and contemporary African literatures have always been marked by an
acute sensitivity to the politics of language, an attentiveness inscribed in
the
linguistic fabric of their own modes of expression. It is curious however, that
despite the prevalence of a much-touted 'linguistic turn' in twentieth century
theory and cultural production, language has frequently been neglected by
literary studies in general. Even more curiously, postcolonial literary
studies,
an erstwhile emergent and now established discipline which has from the outset
contained important elements of linguistic critique, has eschewed any sustained
engagement with this topic. This absence is salient in the study of African
literatures, despite, for instance, the prominence of orature in the African
literary tradition right up to the present day, and sporadic meditations on the
part of such luminaries as Achebe and Ngugi. Beyond this, however, there has
been little scholarly work attuned to the multifarious aspects of language and
linguistic politics in the study of African literature. The present volume aims
to rectify such lacunae by making a substantial interdisciplinary and
transcultural contribution to the gradual reinstatement of the 'linguistic
turn'
in African literary studies. The volume focuses variously on postcolonial and
transcultural African literatures, areas of literary production where the
confluence of several languages, whether indigenous and (post)colonial in the
first case, and local and global in the second case, appears to be a central
and
decisive factor in the formation and transformation of the continent and its
peoples' cultural identities. 446pp, NETHERLANDS. RODOPI.
2012 9789042034761 Hardback GBP81.00
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37918 Mhlambi, Innocentia Jabulisile
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON AFRICAN-LANGUAGE LITERATURES: Reading of isiZulu Fiction
and
Popular Black Television Series
Charts new directions in the study of African-language literatures generally,
and isiZulu fiction in particular. Mhlambi proposes that African popular arts
and culture models be considered as a logical solution to the debates and
challenges informing discourses about expressive forms in African languages.
220pp, SOUTH AFRICA. WITWATERSRAND UNIVERSITY PRESS.
2012 9781868145652 Paperback GBP26.99
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37889 Ngugi wa Thiong'o
IN THE HOUSE OF THE INTERPRETER: A Memoir
Poignantly evokes the authors life and times at boarding schoolthe first
secondary educational institution in British-ruled Kenya in the 1950s, against
the backdrop of the tumultuous Mau Mau Uprising for independence and Kenyan
sovereignty. While Ngugi has been enjoying scouting trips, chess tournaments,
and reading about the fictional RAF pilot adventurer Biggles at the prestigious
Alliance High School near Nairobi, things have been changing rapidly at home.
Poised as he is between two worlds, Ngugi returns home for his first visit
since
starting school to find his house razed and the entire village moved up the
road, closer to a guard checkpoint. Later, his brother Good Wallace, a member
of
the insurgency, is captured by the British and taken to a concentration camp.
As
for Ngug himself, he falls victim to the forces of colonialism in the person of
a police officer encountered on a bus journey, and he is thrown into jail for
six days. In his second year at Alliance High School, the boarding school that
was his haven in a heartless world is shattered by investigations, charges of
disloyalty, and the politics of civil unrest. 256pp, UK. HARVILL SECKER.
2012 9781846556289 Hardback GBP16.99
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37930 Okome, Mojúbàolú Olúfúnké & Vaughan, Olufemi (Eds.)
TRANSNATIONAL AFRICA AND GLOBALIZATION
The dawn of neoliberal rationality in Africa in the 1980s coincided with a
massive exodus of skilled Africans to the global North. Moving beyond the 'push
and pull' framework that has dominated studies of this phenomenon, this
collection instead looks at African transnational migrations against the
backdrop of rapid and intensifying globalization. In doing so, it explores a
dimension usually neglected in most accounts the ways in which
transna-tionalism
as a whole is largely a function of the remarkable adaptability and innovation
of actual migrants. 274pp, UK. PALGRAVE.
2012 9780230338661 Hardback GBP55.00
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37914 Soderlund, Walter C., Briggs, E. Donald, Najem, Tom Pierre & Roberts,
Blake C.
AFRICA'S DEADLIEST CONFLICT: Media Coverage of the Humanitarian Disaster in the
Congo & the United Nations Response, 1997-2008
Examines with the complex intersection of the legacy of post-colonial history a
humanitarian crisis of epic proportions and changing norms of international
intervention associated with the idea of human security and the responsibility
to protect (R2P). It attempts to explain why, despite a softening of norms
related to the sanctity of state sovereignty, the international community dealt
so ineffectively with a brutal conflict in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo,
which between 1997 and 2011 claimed an estimated 5.5 million. In particular,
the
book focuses on the role of mass media in creating a will to intervene, a role
considered by many to be the key to prodding a reluctant international
community
to action. Included in the book are a primer on Congolese history, a review of
United Nations peacekeeping missions in the Congo, and a detailed examination
of
both US television news and New York Times coverage of the Congo from 1997
through 2008. Separate conclusions are offered with respect to peacekeeping in
the Age of R2P and on the role of mass media in both promoting and inhibiting
robust interna-tional responses to large-scale humanitarian crises. 275pp,
CANADA. WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY PRESS.
2012 9781554588350 Paperback GBP34.99
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37704 Taylor, Scott D.
GLOBALIZATION AND THE CULTURES OF BUSINESS IN AFRICA: From Patrimonialism to
Profit
Can Africa develop businesses beyond the extractive or agricultural sectors?
What would it take for Africa to play a major role in global business? By
focusing on recent changes, Scott D. Taylor demonstrates how Africa's business
culture is marked by an unprecedented receptivity to private enterprise.
Challenging persistent stereotypes about crony capitalism and the lack of
development, Taylor reveals a long and dynamic history of business in Africa.
He
shows how a hospitable climate for business has been spurred by institutional
change, globalization, and political and economic reform. Taylor encourages a
broader understanding of the mosaic of African business and the diversity of
influences and cultures that shape it. 256pp, USA. INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS.
2012 9780253005731 Paperback GBP18.99
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37927 Wilén, Nina
JUSTIFYING INTERVENTIONS IN AFRICA: (De)Stabilizing Sovereignty in Liberia,
Burundi and the Congo
Attempts to answer the paradoxical question of how to stabilize a state through
external intervention without destabilizing sovereignty. Examines the
justifications for international and regional interventions in the cases of
Liberia, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 240pp, UK. PALGRAVE.
2012 9780230313989 Hardback GBP57.50
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37908 Yudelman, Dale
LIFE: Under Democracy
The Ernest Cole Photographic Award has been established to stimulate creative
work in photography in southern Africa. The award, initiated by the UCT
Libraries has been named after the documentary photographer, Ernest Cole. The
emphasis of the award is on creative responses to South African society. The
winner of the inaugural award is Dale Yudelman and this book is the first in a
series of annual publications to be published under the auspices of this award.
The series of photographs, Life under Democracy, was inspired by the Ernest
Cole
exhibition at the National Gallery in Cape Town, in February 2011. Cole's
images
feature life under apartheid. Yudelman's series looks at life under democracy
and where we are after eighteen years of liberation. Many of the images were
shot in passing and are personal daily reflections - while others involve more
deliberate excursions. Yudelman returns to the areas he photographed in the
'eighties, for the series, Suburbs in Paradise, which cross-examines white
suburbia under the influence of legislated segregation. To gain perspective, he
also visits some of the people and areas Cole photographed. A sense of how much
has changed begins to develop; and in some cases how much has stayed the same.
As if in conversation, Yudelman uses his iPhone camera as a means of discourse.
The senses are unified through a device, historically utilised for discussion,
in turn, mirroring the merging of a nation whose past is omnipresent. 224pp,
SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA.
2012 9781431406135 Paperback GBP19.95
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