Blogs in January 2021

The Lights of Pointe-Noire 14th January 2021

Alain Mabanckou left Congo in 1989, at the age of twenty-two, not to return until a quarter of a century later. When at last he returns home to Pointe-Noire, a bustling port town on Congo’s south-eastern coast, he finds...

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Songs in the Shade of the Cashew and Coconut Trees: Lullabies and Nursery Rhymes from West Africa and the Caribbean 5th December 2020

Songs about children playing in the schoolyard, sisters braiding each other’s hair at the beach, and parents dancing late into the night mesh together thanks to the music. A wide array of styles–nursery rhymes from Gabon, lullabies from Cape...

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Footprints of the Outsider 28th September 2020

This is the story of the life of Abudu Olwit, and of Teboke, the village where he is born and raised. In Teboke, two Indians build a cotton ginnery, and recruit workers from Sudan and the Congo to operate...

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Broken Glass 16th June 2020

In Republic of the Congo, in the town of Trois-Cents, in a bar called Credit Gone West, a former schoolteacher known as Broken Glass drinks red wine and records the stories of the bar and its regulars, including Stubborn...

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The Death of Comrade President 8th January 2020

In Pointe-Noire, in the small neighbourhood of Voungou, on the family plot where young Michel lives with Maman Pauline and Papa Roger, life goes on. But Michel’s everyday cares – lost grocery money, the whims of his parents’ moods,...

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