Zimbabwe's Plunge is a rare and unique book about Zimbabwe's geo-political and economic situation. The book, with consistent objectivity and the precision of a butcher's cleaver, analyses the link between finance and politics and the way these have contributed to the economic predicament in Zimbabwe. The simple and dynamic style appeals to a wide readership including politicians, economists, historians, academics, secondary school students and ordinary people who want to have knowledge about Zimbabwe's current socio economic problems and their possible solutions.

The Journal includes:
* Survival of cottage industries in Africa: the case of clustering and social networks in Tanzanian garment industries by Stein Kristiansen, Andrew Mbwambo;
* Economic reforms and 'virtual democracy' in South Africa and Zimbabwe: the incompatibility of liberalisation, inclusion and development by Stefan Andreasson;
* Ethiopia-Eritrea: proxy wars and prospects of peace in the horn of Africa by John Abbink.

Zimbabwe's Plunge is a rare and unique book about Zimbabwe's geo-political and economic situation. The book, with consistent objectivity and the precision of a butcher's cleaver, analyses the link between finance and politics and the way these have contributed to the economic predicament in Zimbabwe. The simple and dynamic style appeals to a wide readership including politicians, economists, historians, academics, secondary school students and ordinary people who want to have knowledge about Zimbabwe's current socio economic problems and their possible solutions.

“Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill. These were its assets: a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter. Then there was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe – the only lady private detective in Botswana – brewed redbush tea. And three mugs – one for herself, one for her secretary, and one for the client. What else does a detective agency really need?” The Africa Book Centre invites you to tea with Alexander McCall Smith, creator of Mma Ramotswe, and author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series.

Elinor Sisulu's biography of Walter and Albertina Sisulu has won the 24th Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, a hat-trick for Cape Town publishers David Philip. The jury described Walter and Albertina Sisulu: In Our Lifetime as 'a compelling account' of the Sisulus' long and honourable struggle against apartheid, 'told with honesty and authority'.

An attentive observer of international affairs, Meyssan was intrigued by the anomalies in the first photographs released of the attack on the Pentagon on September 11th 2001, then by the confusion and contradictions in official statements, including some about events at the World Trade Centre. As a result, he carried out his own investigation, which lead him from surprise to surprise. Meyssan challenges the entire official version of the September 11th attacks - claiming that the Pentagon was hit, not by a plane, but by a guided missile fired on the orders of far right-wingers inside the US government.

The maiden issue of Kenya's first literary magazine carries a smouldering tale of a taboo romance between two Kenyans - one ethnic Indian, one African. They cuddle behind the city's Indian haunt called Diamond Plaza. They discuss race and class. They swoon over his Swahili rap music and her homemade spiced kebabs "in a coup of cultural diversity," the author writes.

In this era of rapid globalization, increasing poverty and inequality are two of our most urgent problems, leading to misery and providing fertile fields for anger, despair, and violence. In Southern Exposure, Barbara Thomas-Slayter examines the changes brought about by globalization from the perspective of ordinary people in the Global South, such as small farmers in Kenya, coca growers in Bolivia, or garment workers in Bangladesh, highlighting both the diversity of their experience and common themes.

And so I put the cat among the pigeons, or perhaps the pigeon among the cats. I deliberately waited for everyone to sit down, for that moment when silence fills the air. I then posed the question: "Will someone please tell me why JM Coetzee is more deserving of the Nobel Prize for Literature than Chinua Achebe or Ngugi wa Thiong'o?" The answer came as swiftly and directly as the question: "Because he's white." And then someone else suggested that Wole Soyinka had filled the quota for black African writers, despite Africa's long list of writers from Ayi Kwei Armah to Ben Okri writers whose accomplishments are far superior to Coetzee's. Then someone else suggested this was the cultural version of a resurgent European-American reassertion of global white supremacy, along the precedent set by George Bush and Tony Blair. It soon became clear Coetzee had no sympathisers among my friends, even as our leaders proclaimed him a national hero.

The editorial production of the Africa Review of Books will be piloted by the Forum for Social Studies (FSS), based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with the active support of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique et Technique en Anthropologie Sociale et Culturelle (CRASC), based in Oran, Algeria. The initiative for the publication of the Africa Review of Books dates back to about a decade and it emerged out of a shared concern in the African social research community to create a forum for a critical presentation of books produced on Africa within and outside the continent. The Africa Review of Books will be published twice yearly in English and in French. The maiden issue is to be launched in Dakar at the CODESRIA
30th Anniversary Conference in December 2003.

The so-called silence of the youth is probably due to the deafness of their elders. It is therefore urgent to give the floor to African academic youths to define and discuss their future projects. Conscious of the need to encourage the exchange of ideas and experiences among young Africans, CODESRIA proposes to devote to youth, a collection of CODESRIA publications dubbed "Interventions", as part of the strategic initiative destined to promote young researchers.

"Seven boys left home one morning for work - and they never returned." Those seven boys, later referred to as the Gugulethu Seven, turned up on television that night dead. The news labelled them terrorists and their mothers had to watch their dead children being dragged on the ground in front of the world to see. As I purchase my ticket for the award-winning documentary Long Nights Journey Into Day on four stories, out of the thousands that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission(TRC) uncovered, I ask the ticket seller a question. It's a question that has become a bit of a hobby actually, when watching African films. "How many people have come to see it?" He tells me that there aren't that many and then he proceeds to say that more black people have come to see it than white people. "They should be the ones seeing it." I say. He concurs.

Since 1978, Freedom House has published Freedom in the World, an annual comparative assessment of the state of political rights and civil liberties in 192 countries and 18 related and disputed territories. Widely used by policy-makers, journalists, and scholars, the 700-page survey is the definitive report on freedom around the globe.

"The collection of teeth on the man’s face is a splendid brown. I have never seen such teeth before. Refusing all instruction, my eyes focus on dental contours and craters. Denuded of any superficial pretence; no braces, no fillings, no toothbrush, it is a place where small scavengers thrive." Read Weight of Whispers by Adhiambo Owuor. Just visit the website of the Kwani Literary Journal and click on the link that says 'Stories'.

A first collected works by a Ugandan woman poet, who has had her poems published in journals in Uganda and the US. The work is divided into sections entitled: 'Poems of Challenge'; 'Poems of Sunshine and Loneliness'; 'Poems of Loss and Contradiction'; and 'Poems of Release'.

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2003 has been awarded to the South African writer, John Maxwell Coetzee, "who in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider," according to the Swedish Nobel Committee.
Related Link:
* Nobel for JM Coetzee does black African writers no favours
http://www.sarpn.org.za/newsflash.php#875

Mitch Odero, a veteran Kenyan journalist, remembers vividly how he used to be locked up behind bars for publishing investigative reports which exposed the government. As an editor of one of the local daily newspapers in 1994, he was continuously picked up by police, harassed and tortured for trying to “malign” the KANU government.

Fifty or more developing countries still depend mainly on the tropical commodities or minerals that they produce. Over the past half century, it has become abundantly clear that: Encouraging so many countries to grow coffee, sugar, cotton and other crops has been a disaster. Small farmers get only a tiny share of the final tag on these commodities on supermarket shelves in the North. Prices have collapsed; terms of trade between North and South widened.

Lomba is a young journalist living under military rule in Lagos, Nigeria, the most dangerous city in the world. His mind is full of soul music and girls and the lyric novel he is writing. But his roommate is brutally attacked by soldiers; his first love is forced to marry a wealthy general; and his neighbours on Poverty Street are planning a demonstration that is bound to incite riot and arrests. Lomba can no longer bury his head in the sand.

Paintings made at the East African Artists Residency in Nairobi by Eria Nsubuga are now on show at the Tulifanya gallery in Kampala between 20th September and 10th October 2003.