GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
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]
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
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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