Where Is Uhuru

Neoliberal policies promised to correct multiple distortions in postcolonial Africa. But democratic politics, land reform, rights and freedom all suffered. Shivji calls for Africa-centred thinking that embraces the continent's right to self-determination.

By the two-time winner of the Giller Prize for his novels The Book of Secrets and The In-Between World of Vikram Lall Uhuru Street is M.G. Vassanji’s stunning book of linked stories, set within the Asian community of Dar es Salaam. With delicate strokes, and with irony and humour, Vassanji brings alive the characters who live and work in the shops and tenements of Uhuru Street; among them: Roshan Mattress, so called because of her free and easy ways; a street-wise orphan fighting for survival; a Goan dressmaker who entertains her employers with local gossip; and a servant who opens up the world for the children in his charge, until he oversteps his bounds and has to leave. As the younger generation searches for a new destiny, and the older fiercely holds on to the past, Uhuru Street resonates with the moment of moving on, of leaving the place where we have roots, knowing that things will never be the same.

First published in 1977, this is an eminently readable introduction to contemporary literature in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa. The author examines work in verse, prose and drama, and discusses vernacular language problems, the role of oral literature and tradition and the varied responses to the struggle for freedom and its achievement. He argues that African literature is achieving its own inner dynamic, revealing a rapid spread of influences from one side of the continent to the other and a decrease in influences from the Western world. Part of his argument is based on a discussion of authors not yet known outside East and Central Africa, but whose works shows signs of great promise and originality. Dr Roscoe has close personal knowledge of many of the authors he discusses, as he has worked in East and Central African universities throughout the period of the literary awakening he discusses.

Giller Prize-winner M.G. Vassanji’s The In-Between World of Vikram Lall is a haunting novel of corruption and regret that brings to life the complexity and turbulence of Kenyan society in the last five decades. Rich in sensuous detail and historical insight, this is a powerful story of passionate betrayals and political violence, racial tension and the strictures of tradition, told in elegant, assured prose. The novel begins in 1953, with eight-year-old Vikram Lall a witness to the celebrations around the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, just as the Mau Mau guerilla war for independence from Britain begins to gain strength. In a land torn apart by idealism, doubt, political upheaval and terrible acts of violence, Vic and his sister Deepa must find their place among a new generation. Neither colonists nor African, neither white nor black, the Indian brother and sister find themselves somewhere in between in their band of playmates: Bill and Annie, British children, and Njoroge, an African boy. These are the relationships that will shape the rest of their lives. We follow Vikram through the changes in East African society, the immense promise of the fifties and sixties. But when that hope is betrayed by the corruption and violence of the following decades, Vic is drawn into the Kenyatta government’s orbit of graft and power-broking. Njoroge, his childhood friend, can abandon neither the idealism of his youth nor his love for Vic’s sister Deepa. But neither the idealism of the one nor the passive cynicism of the other can avert the tragedies that await them. The In-Between World of Vikram Lall is a profound and careful examination of one man’s search for his place in the world, with themes that have run through Vassanji’s work: the nature of community in a volatile society, the relations between colony and colonizer, and the inescapable presence of the past. It is also, finally, a deeply personal book speaking to the people who are in the in-between.

Providing a unique insight into how activists and social change advocates are addressing Africa's many challenges from within, this collection of essays by those engaged in using mobile phone technologies for social change provides an analysis of the socioeconomic, political, and media contexts faced by activists in Africa today. The articles address a broad range of issues--including inequalities in access to technology based on gender and rural and urban usage--and it offers practical examples of how activists are using mobile technology to organize and document their experiences. An overview of the lessons learned in making effective use of mobile phone technologies without any of the romanticism so often associated with the use of new technologies for social change is given. Examples are shared in a way that makes them easy to replicate, hoping to lead to greater reflection about the real potential and limitations of mobile technologies. Contributors include Ken Banks, Nathan Eagle, Anil Naidoo, Berna Ngolobe, and Juliana Rotich.

Employing an innovative methodological toolkit, Doing Conceptual History in Africa provides a refreshingly broad and interdisciplinary approach to African historical studies. The studies assembled here focus on the complex role of language in Africa's historical development, with a particular emphasis on pragmatics and semantics. From precolonial dynamics of wealth and poverty to the conceptual foundations of nationalist movements, each contribution strikes a balance between the local and the global, engaging with a distinctively African intellectual tradition while analyzing the regional and global contexts in which categories like "work," "marriage," and "land" take shape.