Chimurenga magazine

Chimurenga is a publication, of arts, culture and politics from and about Africa and its Diasporas, founded and edited by writer and DJ Ntone Edjabe. Both the title chimurenga (a Shona, Zimbabwe, word loosely translated as "liberation struggle") and the content capture the connection between African cultures and politics on the continent and beyond.

Interrogating the superficial has always been the core agenda of the publication. The various renegades are captured in a series of profiles "thinking out loud". Chimurenga shies away from the Q&A format and includes deconstructed and imagined interviews, surreal short stories and poetry and other devices that challenge strict notions of fact and fiction. Covers are equally indicative of the orientation of a journal which is at once theoretical, erotic, provocative. One cover featured the words of Strange Fruit, the song about Southern lynchings that Billie Holiday immortalised. Another featured Neo Muyanga’s portrait of Steve Biko's bruised face. The first edition showed Peter Tosh at a gig in Swaziland in the early 80s. Tosh is pointing an AK-47-shaped guitar in the direction of South Africa and chanting down Babylon.

Chimurenga has been in print since March 2002. Started as a quarterly, Chimurenga now appears approximately three times a year. The magazine has featured work by emerging as well as established voices including Njabulo Ndebele, Lesego Rampolokeng, Santu Mofokeng, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Gael Reagon, Binyavanga Wainaina, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Boubacar Boris Diop, Tanure Ojaide, Dominique Malaquais, Goddy Leye, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Mahmood Mamdani, Jorge Matine, and Greg Tate, among others.

Chimurenga orients itself not only to radical people that form its immediate target group, but also to the lay reader. It is distributed in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Kenya, Swaziland, Botswana and Ghana. Its distribution has seen it read on campuses in Germany, the United States, Great Britain and France.

External links

*Chimurenga Magazine web-site http://www.chimurenga.co.za