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Mkuki Bgoya: “Swahili writers should be mandatory reading in Tanzania, but there’s a deep trauma around books”

Abdulrazak Gurnah, the Zanzibari-born 2021 Nobel Literature laureate’s grand homecoming was punctuated by the translation of his masterpiece, Paradise, into Kiswahili. His publisher, Mkuki Bgoya, speaks about its significance in the Swahili canon.

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Film Review: Binti

While the Tanzanian film industry has offered different portrayals of Tanzanian womanhood over the years, there is still a general lack of curiosity about contemporary stories. What it currently means to be a woman in Dar, the expectations (those you have of yourself and those put upon you), and the way they shape our lives has barely been explored. And often the exploration has not been told with the specificity that would make audiences feel like their stories have been pulled from memory, before being stretched out on the big screen.

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Book Review: Who’s Loving You

The genre of romance is one of the most enduring in the literary world. It’s conventions-that date back to its conception are just as old. A few books down any list will illuminate the formula: meet-cute, bubbling tension that’s often accompanied by some sort of denial, acceptance, conflict, and finally reconciliation. Sometimes bits are rearranged and adjusted to fit the author’s choices, but most of it is left intact. As old as genre, is its singular representation of the type of person who gets to go through this rollercoaster of love and desire- from which the world has only recently awoken. “…this should be obvious,” Sareeta Domingo writes, “but-human beings of all kinds fall in love, and have desire and heartache, and heartbreak.”

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Book Review: Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert

Talia Hibbert’s Brown sister trilogy is a delightful smorgasbord of varying characters. Each with their worlds and personalities curated so specifically, as to make those with similar quirks feel uncanny about their lives splayed out on the page. There’s Chloe, a chronically ill web designer obsessed with lists; Danika, a bisexual academic averse to romance; and Eve, a chaotic ball of sunshine on the autistic spectrum, with a great love for music. Representation matters, sure, but feeling seen? That’s the real game-changer. Romance has the gift of engaging in both the specifics as well as the universal truth that at the end of the day, we all want to be loved. In exploring this truth through characters made so precisely and carefully, she offers us the best of both worlds.

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Rema Album Review: Rave & Roses

Rema arrived on the scene by way of a self-titled EP released in March 2019, and by the end of that year the Mavin Records signee was being heralded as leading a new generation of afrobeats artists. Since this acclaim the young artist has received even more praise with even heftier bangers like Woman, enjoyed collaborations with heavy hitters like Tiwa Savage (as well as been teased to collaborate with the likes of Lil Nas X and Drake), all while amassing a global fanbase. The road leading to his debut album has been paved with so much promise that to declare it much anticipated might be an understatement.

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Review: ‘Rosewater’ by Liv Little

The emotional rollercoaster of having to constantly mend the various parts of your life back together becomes increasingly familiar in your 20s. In Liv Little’s debut novel Rosewater, we bear witness to 28-year-old Elsie Macintosh stitching (and restitching) her life back together time and time again, all while grappling with the idea of home. The novel begins with Elsie getting evicted from her house, and proceeds to slowly reveal the other ways in which she yearns for a safe landing place. Through this yearning and the way it shows up in Elsie’s relationships, Liv Little is able to illustrate the way intimacy, tenderness and love is the necessary grout that moulds our existence together.

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Is Football Redefining the Lines of Nationalism?

The 2023 Women’s World Cup has not only been a source of immense entertainment but an arena to discuss the increasingly blurry nature of the nationalism it fosters and the implication of this national identity. Football has, over the years, been a pathway towards collectivism in modern societies critiqued for the growing sense of individualism on one hand. On the other, it mirrors the complexities of nationalism and identity. Nationalism traditionally posits that nations are built on hereditary connections and shared culture through language, religion, territory and sometimes even behavioural patterns.

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Love through letters: a look into the most iconic symbol of love

In the first offering in Jenny Han’s trilogy, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before (2014), Lara Jean pens 5 letters to her crushes with the intention of sending none—she simply wants to get the overwhelming feelings that come with having a crush on someone off her chest. However, when her younger sister Kitty mails off the letters to each crush, Lara Jean finds herself having to deal with the rapidly unfolding issues that ensue after each crush reads her innermost longing about them. Her motivation to write love letters (even without any intention of sending them) is understandable whether you’ve written one or not: I have these big feelings for someone and they are so big that I feel I might burst if I don’t spill them somewhere outside of me.

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