Category: blog
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LOATAD is 8!
The Library Of Africa and The African Diaspora (LOATAD) is eight years old today! During that time, we’ve hosted over 100 writers-in-residence, run hundreds of events, created or co-created three school and community libraries, delivered hundreds of lessons to thousands of schoolchildren, and donated thousands of culturally relevant books to individuals and communities. And that’s…
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Aja Binta Jammeh Sidibe (1955-2025)
As a journalist, I’m used to working to a deadline and writing against time, but over the last three years, I’ve been in a futile battle with trying to outpace death, which, as a human being, I’ll never get used to. A few days ago, I received a message from my fixer in The Gambia…
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What solidarity looks like
I can’t lie – this picture brings a tear to my eye. This is what Pan-African and Diaspora solidarity looks like. At the centre, on the laptop via Zoom, is Noor Salah H. Elfaki, a Sudanese writer and one of our 2025 LOATAD Black Atlantic residents. Standing behind her, and seated beside her, are members…
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The political and the personal
I recently spent time in Togo, in its coastal capital, Lomé, where I had the privilege of speaking with/listening to 23 everyday women over 60 whose lives have been irrevocably impacted by the vicissitudes of the country’s postcolonial politics. Since Togo’s independence from France in 1960 (it was previously colonised by Germany and then partitioned…
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Marielle Still Presente, 6 Years On…
TW: Today marks the sixth anniversary of the assassination of Marielle Franco (1979-2018), the Afro-Brazilian politician who, along with her driver, Anderson Pedro Gomes, was killed in Rio de Janeiro while returning from a meeting titled, “Young Black Women Moving [Power] Structures.” In 2016, Franco ran for a seat on the Rio de Janeiro city…
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Tracking down the last survivors of the Bengal famine (BBC News)
I’m deeply moved by this story about survivors of the Bengal famine and the profound work that Sailen Sarkar has been doing over the last few years travelling around the Bengali countryside gathering their first-hand accounts. “Sailen has now gathered more than 60 eyewitness accounts. In most cases, the people he says he talked to…
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Language and Memory in Gambia’s Ghana Town
Wherever I’ve been on my journey along the coast of West Africa, I’ve encountered communities of Ghanaians who for generations have lived in the country they now call home. These are women whose parents came with them as children from immediate post-independence Ghana and who are now in their 60s and 70s with memories of…
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Erasure: Musings on American Fiction
On its own, American Fiction is a great movie. But by making the stories of three Black women integral to the narrative, it elevates itself to a whole other level. There’s a scene in the movie, American Fiction, in which Coraline, a lawyer who’s recently become involved with Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a writer and the film’s main character,…
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Annick Balley | 1964-2024
I’m saddened to hear of the passing of Annick Balley, a pioneering journalist and broadcaster who I interviewed at her home in Cotonou, Benin, in October 2022 for A Women’s Oral History of West Africa. Madame Balley had a long and distinguished career in public service broadcasting, rising to the top of her profession as…
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The compound interest of compound housing
Interesting article in The Guardian about an intergenerational care home in the U.K. that incorporates a nursery where children and residents come together daily, and the positive benefits this has for both seniors and toddlers. “If the idea is familiar to you,” the article states, “it is probably from the Channel 4 series, Old People’s…
Sylvia Arthur 