At least 500 people died and more than 800 were reported missing in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown on August 13-14, when heavy rains swept away everything in their path. Kenyan Poet Shailja Patel reflects on the tragedy.

The 13^th Israel Apartheid Week continues in Kenya, March 20-25, 2017. The event, organised by Kenya Palestine Solidarity Movement, will feature films, poetry and discussions. In this poem, Shailja Patel shares her thoughts on why Kenyans - and Africans - should support the struggles of the Palestinian people against Israeli apartheid.

Celebrated Kenyan poet Shailja Patel captures the disturbing reality of a country where violent bloodletting has become normal. Everyone is momentarily paralysed with shock; next, state terror targets the vulnerable; but soon life goes on. Yet the nation is scarred forever.

Rape cartoons are funny if it's inconceivable to you that you could ever be raped. If you live in a bubble of gender privilege that insulates you from all consequences of rape culture.

Drum Rider, by Shailja Patel, a tribute to Zanzibari musical legend Bi Kidude, was first published in Pambazuka News. Patel's performance of Drum Rider at the recent TED global talent search brought a Vancouver audience to its feet, and is being avidly shared across the internet. Watch at:

Shailja Patel’s unique artistry is a provocative global mash-up of genres. She’s a slam poetry champion and star of her award-winning, one-woman play “Migritude” about the intricate webs of global migration and cultural identity. As an acclaimed poet of South Asian and Kenyan ancestry, through her fearless art she embodies the authentic voices of women, South Asians and Africans who are otherwise seldom heard. For her, the ultimate destination of poetry is justice -- too heart-breakingly beautiful to be denied.

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What makes the cake episode so deeply offensive is the appropriation, by both artist and his audience, of African women’s bodies and experiences, while completely excluding real African women from the discourse. It is a pornography of violence.

'My job as a poet is to wake myself up and take responsibility for learning the truth. That means doing hard work, looking beyond headlines, being willing to interrogate data, structures, systems.'

The two cases at the International Criminal Court against six Kenyans suspected of masterminding the post-election chaos present a good opportunity for victims to get justice for the atrocious crimes, writes Shailja Patel. Kenya failed to set up a special tribunal for the purpose

Sureta Chana, defence lawyer for victims of post-election violence in the ICC trials, helped prosecute scores of Kenyan’s for sedition under the Moi regime. Shouldn’t she make an apology to the people she herself harmed, asks Shailja Patel.

the greedy old men
vampires
live forever

the women who restore
rebuild replant
remake
die in their fullness...

Wangari Maathai’s legacies ‘are not just for future generations of Kenyans – her influence was global. We have lost her far too early,’ writes Shailja Patel.

‘Whether we are aware of it or not, in our daily negotiations with modernity and tradition, with selfhood and community, with partnership, family, society and state, we swim in waters changed forever by the battles she fought, writes Shailja Patel.

‘Congratulations’ is a wholly inadequate accolade for Pambazuka's 500th issue.

It's hard to capture the breadth and importance of what Pambazuka does. It is a space, a community, a movement. It is a clearing-house, an archive, a resource base, a forum for radical scholarship, analysis and debate that is not occurring anywhere else.

And of course, it's a journal, and a platform for action, that never compromises on a vision of justice and self-determination for all Africans.

Thank you.

Although supportive of the right of South Africa’s public workers to strike, Shailja Patel says there's no excuse not to protect and defend the country’s most vulnerable.

For all it cost. For all we've lost. For all who persisted, decade upon decade, in the face of every defeat. For the invisible heroes of four generations, who brought it to fruition. For those taken by the struggle, whose spirits we carry with us. For those who laboured for this and did not live to see it realised. For the bereaved, displaced, dispossessed, raped, whose blood and suffering have watered this moment. If victory means anything, it must mean the beginning of restitution…

Howard Zinn, 87, an activist historian whose 'People's History of the United States' resurrected neglected stories of the country's past and became a surprise bestseller in the 1980s and beyond, died of a heart attack on 27 January in Santa Monica, California, where he was on a speaking tour.

Stockholm's International Poetry Festival in October had a special focus on Kenyan women poets. and Shailja Patel shared poems and reflections on 'Literature and independence in Kenya' at the festival's headline seminar. The audience represented a sizeable contingent of Africans based in Stockholm, including Okoth Osewe, whose Kenya Stockholm Blog is the go-to resource for all things Kenyan in Sweden. Osewe videotaped portions of the seminar, and has generously made them available to the public.

Shailja Patel is discouraged and disappointed by Pambazuka’s publication of that casts South African cartoonist Zapiro as an enemy of democracy.

© Poet and performer Shailja Patel celebrates the life of Bantu Mwaura (1969-2009) – Kenyan artist, activist and academic – through a series of reminiscences about what he meant to different people. Mwaura, husband of Susan and father of Makeba and Me Katilili, died on 26 April. ‘He was expression without hindrance; the way Africa used to be. He left behind power and energy; people speaking. In his dreadlocks and movements and smile and dress, Bantu carried an entire people.’