News & Events

On 21 July 1955, writer, poet, novelist, illustrator and academic Véronique Tadjo was born in Paris. Having lived and worked in many countries within the African continent and diaspora, she feels herself to be pan-African, in a way that is reflected in the subject matter, imagery and allusions of her work. Read the Library Weekly!

On 12 July 1929, Sudanese writer and cultural journalist Tayeb Salih was born in Karmakol. He is best known for his novel 'Season of Migration to the North', considered to be one of the most important novels in Arabic literature. His novels and short stories have been translated into English and more than a dozen other languages. Read the Library Weekly!

On 6 July 1937, Bessie Amelia Emery Head was born in Pietermaritzburg. Although she was born in South Africa, she is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer. Bessie Head was born of an illegal union between her white mother and black father at Fort Napier Mental Institution, where her mother was a patient. Read the Library Weekly!

In post-Arab Spring Cairo, two strangers meet and fall in love. If an Egyptian cannot speak English, by Noor Naga, is a story of two people dislocated from their home environments, one by intent and one by necessity. It is the subject of our latest Library Highlight!

Since the democratic transition of 1994, increasing numbers of ‘Khoisan revivalists’ in South Africa are rejecting their coloured identity and engaging in activism as indigenous people. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Cape Town, this book by Rafael Verbuyst takes an unprecedented bottom-up approach.