News & Events

The African Studies Centre Leiden is sad to report that Laurens van der Laan passed away in Oegstgeest on 22 March 2024. Van der Laan was a researcher at the ASC from 1969 till his retirement in 1997. Van der Laan’s main publications are on the economy and trade in West Africa, particularly on Sierre Leone.  

On 11 March 1978, Durodola Durosomo Duroorike Timothy Adisa Ladipo, more commonly known as Duro Ladipo, died at the age of 51 after a short illness. He was one of the best known and critically acclaimed Yoruba dramatists who emerged from postcolonial Africa. 

Contrary to popular perceptions of North Korea as a hermit kingdom, its capital city used to be a hotspot for international travel. During the Cold War a stream of African visitors travelled to North Korea, a largely overlooked phenomenon, writes Tycho van der Hoog.

On 7 March 1968, the British-Nigerian writer and editor Sarah Ladipo Manyika was born in Nigeria. She is the author of two well-received novels, 'In Dependence' (2009) and 'Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream To The Sun' (2016), as well as the non-fiction collection 'Between Starshine and Clay: Conversations from the African Diaspora' (2022).