Editor’s note: The spelling of the ethnic term “Coloured,” used within the context of South African history and culture, reflects the writer’s preference. October 2015 marks the 30th anniversary of the death of one of the world’s great novelists, arguably the greatest Africa—let alone South Africa—has ever produced, a man who was not only a prodigiously…

The Motown musical genius Smokey Robinson—the man whom Bob Dylan famously called America’s “greatest living poet”—turns 75 today. In a career of astonishing longevity spanning more than half a century and with hits too numerous to list, he has given pleasure to millions throughout the world. As such, it is only fitting that we pause to…

Without wishing to sound unduly morbid, death is irrefutably part of life; or, as the poet T.S. Eliot famously remarked in Sweeney Agonistes (pdf), “Life is death.” From classical writers who expounded the notion of dying to African-American novelists James Baldwin and Walter Mosley, much of whose work is permeated by the fear of it, the…

To coincide with both Black History Month in the United Kingdom and the internationally renowned Frieze art fair, there are a staggering seven exhibitions by black artists—plus a historical-archive showcase presenting formerly unseen photographs of black people in Victorian Britain—currently showing in London. Previously unthinkable in what was once a notoriously conservative, painfully homogeneous and…

Beauty, humanity and dignity are, sadly, not the first words that spring to mind when you think of apartheid-era South Africa, with its pernicious brutality and the callous, systematic dehumanization of its nonwhite citizens. And yet the joyful, aesthetically sensitive and uplifting images taken by George Hallett—a Coloured Capetonian and arguably the most talented photographer…

Friends, I bring you great news. Contrary to what you might have assumed from the title of the play, Sizwe Banzi is in fact not dead after all, but very much alive and well in London. In extremely fine fettle, even. Not bad for a man reputed to have been dead for some 42 years,…

“Niggardly.” Go on, I dare you. Say it. Savor those syllables. Let your tongue caress those consonants. If you’re black and reading this, you may well have just laughed, smiled knowingly, been confused or even taken offense, depending on the size of your vocabulary. If you’re white and reading this, you will probably have just…

The Island will forever be synonymous with John Kani and Winston Ntshona, the two black South African actors who devised the play in collaboration with white South African dramatist Athol Fugard in 1973, and who played the two lead roles (to which they lent their names) for almost three decades in productions throughout the world.…

Lauded British-African filmmaker John Akomfrah’s aesthetically captivating and poignant homage to Jamaican polymath, cultural theorist and British intellectual Stuart Hall is a real must-see, and one that I am all the richer for having seen. Currently showing as a multilayered video installation at Tate Britain for the next six months, this three-screen film montage is…