Podcasts on Race, Anti-Racism and African Literature

We, at Africa Writes, stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. Black Trans Lives Matter. Black Women’s Lives Matter. Black Children’s Lives Matter.

In this trying time for many of us, especially for the global Black community, there has been an outpouring of support and sharing of anti-racist literature. By way of contributing to the necessary reminder of Black resilience and joy during this transformative period, we have been sharing quotes on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook by beloved Black writers we adore who offer courage and encouragement in the face of injustice and suffering.

We’ve dug through past Africa Writes festival podcasts archive, from 2016 – 2019, to offer conversations on or around the subjects of race and anti-racism from literature by Africans and writers of African descent. Through these selected podcasts we hope you are reminded of the beauty of literature and its power in assessing the world we live in, being a mirror of our lived realities, and creating expansive visions of worlds where racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism – and other forms of oppression – cease to exist. We hope this small offering will lighten, broaden and enhance your day as the fight for equality continues. Head over to our Mixcloud if you’re interested in listening to more. Enjoy.

2016

2017

2018

2019

Image: Black Lives Matter logo

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The Sphere

Photograph by Elena Saavedra Buckley. Once when I was about twelve I was walking down the dead-end road in Albuquerque where I grew up, around twilight with a friend. Far beyond the end of the road was a mountain range, and at that time of evening it flattened into a matte indigo wash, like a mural. While kicking down the asphalt we saw a small bright light appear at the top of the peaks, near where we knew radio towers to occasionally emit flashes of red. But this glare, blinding and colorless, grew at an alarming rate. It looked like a single floodlight and then a tight swarm beginning to leak over the edge of the summit. My friend and I became frightened, and as the light poured from the crest, our murmurs turned into screams. We stood there, clutching our heads, screaming. I knew this was the thing that was going to come and get me. It was finally going to show me the horrifying wiring that lay just behind the visible universe and that was inside of me too. And then, a couple se...

DEMOCRACY DAY SPEECH BY PMB; MAY 29 2016

www.naijaloaded.com My compatriots, It is one year today since our administration came into office. It has been a year of triumph, consolidation, pains and achievements. By age, instinct and experience, my preference is to look forward, to prepare for the challenges that lie ahead and rededicate the administration to the task of fixing Nigeria. But I believe we can also learn from the obstacles we have overcome and the progress we made thus far, to help strengthen the plans that we have in place to put Nigeria back on the path of progress. We affirm our belief in democracy as the form of government that best assures the active participation and actual benefit of the people. Despite the many years of hardship and disappointment the people of this nation have proved inherently good, industrious tolerant, patient and generous. The past years have witnessed huge flows of oil revenues. From 2010 average oil prices were $100 per barrel. But economic and security co...

The Private Life: On James Baldwin

JAMES BALDWIN IN HYDE PARK, LONDON. PHOTOGRAPH BY ALLAN WARREN. Via Wikimedia Commons , licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 . In his review of James Baldwin’s third novel, Another Country , Lionel Trilling asked: “How, in the extravagant publicness in which Mr. Baldwin lives, is he to find the inwardness which we take to be the condition of truth in the writer?” But Baldwin’s sense of inwardness had been nourished as much as it had been damaged by the excitement and danger that came from what was public and urgent. Go Tell It on the Mountain and Giovanni’s Room dramatized the conflict between a longing for a private life, even a spiritual life, and the ways in which history and politics intrude most insidiously into the very rooms we try hardest to shut them out of. Baldwin had, early in his career, elements of what T. S. Eliot attributed to Henry James, “a mind so fine that it could not be penetrated by an idea.” The rest of the time, however, he did not have this luxury, as pub...

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