News & Events

On 5 September 2010, South African writer, university teacher and journalist Lewis Nkosi died in Johannesburg at the age of 73. He spent 30 years in exile as a consequence of restrictions placed on him and his writing by the Suppression of Communism Act and the Publications and Entertainment Act passed in the 1950s and 1960s. Read the Library Weekly!

The African Studies Centre Leiden is sad to report that Jan Hoorweg passed away in his home in Leiderdorp on 3 August 2022. Jan started to work as a social psychologist at the African Studies Centre in 1967. He continued to work at the ASC up to 2014, ten years after his official retirement. 

This book by Bert van Pinxteren shows that maintaining former colonial languages as medium of instruction in education will become impossible to sustain. Over the next decade, some African countries will have to transition to African languages. This will bolster the new, decolonised cultural traditions already taking shape on the continent.

On 29 July 1945, Xhosa dramatist, essayist, critic, novelist, historian, biographer, translator and poet Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi died in Ntab'ozuko at the age of 69. His works are regarded as instrumental in standardising the grammar of isiXhosa and preserving the language in the 20th century. Read the Library Weekly!