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World of imagination: A well-written book takes us to a place where it wants us to be. Photo: Bernard Bodo/Getty Images

Celebrating the timeless magic of books: Why classical literature endures

Open the pages and you’re gone, transported to the writer’s exact state of mind

Brave: Ghanaian author Kobby Ben Ben was at the recent Franschhoek Literary Festival. His first novel No One Dies Yet has queer themes but it also contains broader social commentary.

Kobby Ben Ben on breaking the queer ceiling

Novel writes queerness into a space where it’s forbidden and meanders through the unforgiving politics of Ghana, past and present

Notes from the Body

Writers’ stories about illness and healing are transformative for readers This content is restricted to registered users and subscribers. Get Your Free Account The Mail &…

Franschhoek festival: go tell it on the mountain

The literary event aims to ‘inspire, delight, inform and challenge’ those who attend

Writing under strain: Many of the works in the collection Camouflage reflect the realities of living under undemocratic conditions and in poverty, with violent civil protests a reality. Photo: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images

‘Camouflage’: Tales from the powerhouse of modern African writing

An extended version of this anthology promises more writings from Nigeria’s nooks and crannies

Culture of struggle: Diturupa troupes in Makapanstad celebrate the role of black soldiers in the first and second world wars. (Photos: Lucas Styles Ledwaba)

Review: ‘Culture and the Liberation Struggle in South Africa’: On the arts as a catalyst in the quest for true freedom

This new collection of essays, tributes and analyses focuses on the role of culture in the fostering of radical consciousness

K.Y. Amoako, founder and president of African Center, speaks during a forum on African energy and innovation at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, Aug. 4, 2014. A two-decade surge in growth in Africa suggests the poorest continent is starting to come to grips with its challenges and has raised the prospect of the “African lions” emulating the “Asian tiger” economies in the 21st century. Photographer: Drew Angerer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Review: A masterful look at five decades of African development

‘Know The Beginning Well’ is an insightful peek into the life of KY Amoako and the fascinating work he has done on the continent

Defiant dreams: Pictures are used without captions in Saidiya Hartman’s book.
Video

Inside the circle: A review of Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments

Saidiya Hartmanilluminates the perspectives of young Black women through a vividly cinematic narrative where we are positioned to view the world through their eyes.

Prosaic – until Hani’s assassins

The stories of children of apartheid activists are similar but Lindiwe Hani’s prose about a meeting with her father’s killers comes into its own.

Fantasy fails to enchant

“A mage’s name is better hidden than a herring in the sea, better guarded than a dragon’s den.” — Ursula K le Guin: A Wizard of Earthsea

Uproot

Step out of the grooves of those who robbed you

New and welcome is McKinley’s meticulous marshalling of evidence to prove the point.

A — Z of Amazing South African Women

Moms in a park is a mother of a story

In her new novel, The Park (Macmillan), Gail Schimmel looks at motherhood. We asked her about the book and her writing world.

Creative nonfiction’s firm legs in Africa

Creative nonfiction’s firm legs in Africa

In a new collection, the continent is written anew by inventive nonfiction writers telling complex stories.

UFS is embracing the challenge to transform education beyond the model that was established centuries ago

​Phiyega’s war on Booysen led to an unlikely – and surprising – alliance with McBride

Initially suspicious, the major general discovered another side to the tenacious IPID director — which in turn would lead to McBride’s suspension

Leading the struggle: A South African Native National Congress

A century of voter struggles told beautifully through people’s promise and despair

​Martin Plaut’s book on the disenfranchisement of black voters in 1909 suggests comparison with today’s inflammatory party-list system.