MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
The Artfulness of Death in Africa by John Mack
Revelatory exploration of funerary practice in sub-Saharan Africa
(Left to right) Power figure (nkisi), Kongo peoples (Loango, Republic of Congo),19th–20th century, wood with mirror, whose reflective surface suggests the dividing line between the realms of the living and the dead; Large, swathed female figure (niombo), Bwende-Dondo peoples (Republic of Congo, DRC), c1938. An early museum photograph of the object shows it originally had an additional small figure of a baby suckling on the right breast; Ceramic memorial head (nsode), Akan peoples (Ghana), c19th century and Crucifix, Kongo peoples (DRC or Angola), 16th–17th century, brass, its form reflecting a Kongo ideogram
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
A New Awakening: Adventures In British Jazz 1966 - 1971, G3, and Buck Owens
JAMES WALSH is moved by an exhibition of graphic art that relates horrors that would be much less immediate in other media
A SPECIALIST in African arts and cultures, John Mack has written many books based on more than two decades of research, field work, exhibitions and publications.
Memory, miniaturisation and maritime culture are just a few of his preoccupations and his latest work looks closely at the relationship between art and death in sub-Saharan Africa.
Drawing on an extensive list of archaeological, historical, anthropological and literary sources, Mack traces the patterns and divergences of sociospiritual life across sub-Saharan communities in seven richly detailed chapters.
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