Our friends at the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative have welcomed a new writer on board. Please join us in welcoming their newest reviewer, South African author Lebohang Masango who joins the #WorldKidLit Wednesday team.
There’s a short Q&A at Africa in Words with Lizzy Attree. Among the many things she does, Lizzy is also the director of Short Story Day Africa (SSDA), and we’ll be working with her and her team this year as the US publisher for the SSDA anthology Disruption. Stay tuned for more information on that!
“On March 6, 1971, a group of some of the top musicians from the United States -– Ike and Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett, the Staple Singers, and more -– boarded a plane bound for Ghana to perform in a musical celebration that was dubbed the “Soul to Soul Festival.”’ Afropop Worldwide revisits the festival on its 50th anniversary with musicologist John Collins, poet and scholar Tsitsi Ella Jaji (who, by the way, wrote a beautiful blurb for Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu’s The Theory of Flight), concert goers and more. They’ve also included a companion piece of selected readings and videos.
Africa is a Country radio explores the musical history of Cape Town with New School professor Sean Jacobs and filmmaker Dylan Valley. And after listening to this conversation, you want to dig into the complex and intersecting histories of the Mother City, be sure to pick up a copy of Henry Trotter’s Cape Town: A Place Between, the first book in our Intimate Geographies Series.
Submissions have opened for the Kendeka Prize for African Literature. The award honors unpublished fiction and non-fiction by African authors.
Black Women Radicals has put together a great list of 16 Black feminist archive projects. From hip-hop, to visual art, to Caribbean history, there are so many fantastic projects to explore.
“While the cost of living continues to rise and older generations of activists fade away — making it harder for free-spirited artistry to exist — we gather tightly to embrace Ferlinghetti’s cathedral in all its dusty homeliness and independent boldness on the corner of Columbus and Broadway.” The literary world is mourning the loss of poet, publisher, and founder of City Lights books, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Read remembrances from SF Gate, the New York Times, The Nation, and from his community at City Lights. And, of course, spend some time with his poetry.
The New York Times‘
Black History Month may be coming to a close, but amazing books by Black authors and stories of Black heroes and history are important any time of year. CLMP has put together a reading list of books and magazines from small presses that celebrate this history. We’ve got two titles on the list— The Theory of Flight by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, which uses fiction to explore the history of Zimbabwe, and King Shaka by Luke Molver, a graphic novel from our Story Press Africa imprint that explores the life of legendary Zulu leader King Shaka.
CrimeReads has a fantastic conversation with John Copenhaver, Cheryl Head, and Kristen Lepionka, the judges for Sisters in Crime’s Pride Award for Emerging LGBTQIA+ Crime Writers, on the state of crime writing for the LGBTQIA+ community.
And finally, Tina Jordan at the New York Times looks at the history of literary games and puzzles in the paper’s pages. “In this era of crossword puzzles, Words With Friends and The Times’s own Spelling Bee, it’s fascinating to look back at just how long the paper has been printing word games and literary quizzes.” You can test your book knowledge with a quiz from 1989.
In Catalyst news,