Preetika Nanda
Jennifer Makumbi: African writing becomes raw material for the European novel form
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi's podcast offered startling and provocative insights on a variety of topics. Perhaps the most surprising was when Makumbi compared African writing and stories to cotton and coffee that is packaged into Western forms and consumed in the West. Here's the full explosive excerpt. (It has been edited for clarity.) Bhakti Shringarpure: You've spoken about being an Ugandan writer who is being published in the UK and what you observed about audiences and readerships, and what you're calling the "decentering" of readerships. You said something important about the ways in which histories of the empire have made it such...
Preetika Nanda
WATCH: How To Write About War
On March 25, 2022, Radical Books Collective organized a panel titled ‘How To Write About War’ to intervene in the moral and political crisis around the writing, reporting, representing and filming of war. The event featured Bhakti Shringarpure, Suchitra Vijayan, Nadifa Mohamed and Billy Kahora. Panelists started with the discussion on the egregious coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine being described as the third world war. The conversation started by trying to expand and understand the challenges of representation, narrations and complex valences of the term "war." Vijayan noted that we have had the war on Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen. Despite the overwhelming evidence...
Preetika Nanda
Trailblazing African Feminists: A Podcast Compilation
Our BookRising podcast compilation spotlights trailblazing African feminist writers.
Preetika Nanda
Tsitsi Dangarembga: On Engaged Literature in the Shadow of Capitalism
Our BookRising podcast features award-winning writer Tsitsi Dangarembga. We have transcribed an excerpt which discusses the challenges of writing engaged, political literature in the shadow of capitalism.
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