WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Lumumba’s right hand woman
ROGER MCKENZIE recommends an insider's view of the fight for African independence, as experienced by an important and neglected woman
Andree Blouin, centre, Patrice Lumumba’s adviser and speechwriter, an image used for the film Soundtrack To A Coup D'Etat
[Modern Films/IMDb] 
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
My Country, Africa: Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria
Andree Blouin, Verso, £18.99
THERE is much to unpick from the title alone of My Country, Africa: Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria.
The reference to Africa as a country describes the pan-Africanist philosophy of Andree Blouin, a mixed heritage woman born in the Central African Republic. It is important to understand that Blouin’s support for pan-Africanism — as she appears to interpret it, as a United States of Africa — does not mean she was a socialist. She was not.
Blouin makes it clear in this important book that her priority was fighting for the liberation of the African continent from colonial domination.
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