Split second

Brief Summary Once again, Africa is veering towards a precipice. The much-vaunted African renaissance, a three-way equation of a flowering of liberal democracy, culture, and economic growth appears to be in tatters. Instead, sagging economic performance, backsliding on liberal democracy and other human rights reforms, and increased national and regional tensions menace much of the continent. With globalization and the increased power of market forces to propel change, financial and commodity volatility have emerged as critical elements that African governments have had to factor into political calculations. As political legitimacy began to be tied directly to economic success, the fallout from the continent s economic crisis appears to translate into political fragility. With sagging economic performance, political leaders are confronted by a force beyond their control, a power more radically unyielding than the domestic political opponents they had grown used to controlling by a combination of brute force, favoritism, or political manipulation rather than continue to pursue the uncertain path of liberal democracy. Hence, liberal democracy is under siege in Africa. This book is a must read for scholars and students of democracy in underdeveloped societies rattled by political and economic earthquakes engendered by the rampaging forces of corporate capitalism. It would be particularly useful for its incisive deconstruction of government-sponsored alternative democratic frameworks and the political calculations at their heart. ISBN:9781592215218 Author:Tatah Mentan

Brief summary This collection of essays reflects on the life and work of Ngugi wa Thiong'o, who celebrated his 80th birthday in 2018. Drawing from a wide range of contributors, including writers, critics, publishers and activists, the volume traces the emergence of Ngugi as a novelist in the early 1960s, his contribution to the African culture of letters at its moment of inception, and his global artistic life in the twenty-first century. Here we have both personal and critical reflections on the different phases of the writer's life: there are poems from friends and admirers, commentaries from his co-workers in public theatre in Kenya in the 1970s and 1980s, and from his political associates in the fight for democracy, and contributions on his role as an intellectual of decolonization, as well as his experiences in the global art world. Included also are essays on Ngugi's role outside the academy, in the world of education, community theatre, and activism. In addition to tributes from other authors who were influenced by Ngugi, the collection contains hitherto unknown materials that are appearing in English for the first time. Both a celebration of the writer, and a rethinking of his legacy, this book brings together three generations of Ngugi readers. We have memories and recollections from the people he worked with closely in the 1960s, the students that he taught at the University of Nairobi in the 1970s, his political associates during his exile in the 1980s, and the people who worked with him as he embarked on a new life and career in the United States in the 1990s. First-hand accounts reveal how Ngugi's life and work have intersected, and the multiple forces that have converged to make him one of the greatest writers to come out of Africa in the twentieth century. ISBN:9781847012142 Author:Simon Gikandi and Ndirangu Wachanga