hurttinthehall asked: hello! I'm doing a presentation for French class on Literature in Francophone North and West African countries and was wondering if you could help me find online sources, such as excerpts or articles?? I'd greatly appreciate it.

Hey,

Great question. I just discovered this site, AfricanInWords.com, which is all about topics relating to African arts (particularly the literary arts). Also, check the blogroll on my website: www.spectraspeaks.com. I have a section for Books and Publishing that contains sites that cater to African audiences, including Farafina Books based in Nigeria. On either of these, I’m sure you’ll find scholars and/or scholarly research on African literature. Best of luck. And do send on the presentation when you’re done. I’d love to read it.

afrofemlove,
Spectra

dynamicafrica:

Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s new book, is the story of Ifemelu, a young Nigerian who travels to America to study and stays there for 13 years before deciding to return to Lagos. The book is an atmospheric and vibrant love story – the love between Ifemelu and Obinze, the high-school sweetheart she leaves behind, the love between Ifemelu and her American boyfriend, the love she has for her young cousin Dike, whom she looks after in America, and the love of her homeland, Nigeria. It is also a novel about race and immigration and what it feels like to be black in America.

But the book’s biggest love affair seems to be Adichie’s enduring relationship with hair. Hairstyle is such a constant presence in the book that not a page goes past without a mention of it: straight weaves, box braids, cornrows, dreadlocks, afros, twists, raucous curls, kinky coils and TWAs (teeny weeny afros). Not to mention texturisers, relaxers, oils, pomades and hair butter. No character in her book gets away without having their hairstyle mentioned, and many are defined by it. And not just the girls. ‘The greying hair on the back of his head was swept forward, a comical arrangement to disguise his bald spot.’ ‘A dreadlocked white man sat next to her on the train, his hair like old twine ropes that ended in a blond fuzz.’

Chimamanda Adichie, 36, sits before me now in a hotel in London: contained, amused, sexy and intellectual. Her own hair is succinctly tethered, but it looks as if, were she to free it, it would be ready to spring into action at any time.

‘I am obsessed with hair!’ she exclaims, before settling happily into a long session on the subject. ‘As you can see I have natural, negro hair, free from relaxers and things. My hair story started when I was a baby. My mother had boys and she desperately wanted a girl, a girl with hair. I came out with a lot of hair and she was thrilled. As I was growing up she would do things to my hair but what I loved the most was when she stretched it with a hot comb. I was terrified too, because when the comb touched your ear it was so painful, but I loved the idea that my hair would then be straight. So when I was three years old I already had the idea that straight hair was beautiful and my hair was ugly.’

In secondary school her hair had to be natural or in braids. Even now, Adichie says, her two nieces who go to school near Lagos have to have their hair cut short, like boys. (‘They are continually texting me, to ask me to buy them a wig. I believe strongly that we should be proud of our hair, but if my 15-year-old nieces want a straight wig, I’ll buy them a straight wig! Life is short.’)

On the last day of secondary school Adichie ‘relaxed’ her hair. ‘It was this huge girl occasion for me and my friends,’ she says. ‘A relaxer alters the hair chemically and makes it permanently straight. But it also burns the scalp. And sometimes the hair just refuses to be totally straight, so they’ll use a tong and then it smells just like burning goat.’

She progressed through a series of hairstyles before she moved to America. ‘But here’s the thing – in America I suddenly found out I was black. I’m black! What does that mean? Suddenly I started thinking, why do I want my hair to look like white girls’ hair? This is absurd.’ In Americanah, after Ifemelu gets the relaxer treatment in the salon for the first time, the hairdresser says, ‘Wow, girl, you’ve got that white-girl swing!’Adichie writes. ‘She left the salon almost mournfully; while the hairdresser had flat-ironed the ends, the smell of burning, of something organic dying which should not have died, had made her feel a sense of loss.’

Adichie well remembers the day she cut off all her hair, and is now a keen exponent of the natural hair movement, though it is only popular in America; back in Nigeria hair is still straight. She has a friend who will not even answer the door without her wig, and ‘the salons there don’t know how to care for our hair any more. They only know about wigs and weaves and relaxed hair.’

(read more)

Don’t get put off my the length, the entire article is well worth reading. I just wish Adichie would’ve addressed the real reason why Nigerians were upset about Thandie Newton being cast to play a Nigerian woman.

spectraspeaks:

From my latest piece, “What Kind of African Doesn’t Speak Any African Languages? Me.”

“There are a myriad of other identity markers that reveal the extent of both our sameness and uniqueness and make up the diverse African cultures that span the globe. Africa is complex–Africans, even moreso. Let’s not trade in our shared heritage for the exclusivity of an unjust social hierarchy. Let’s not , as our colonizers did, draw borders around poorly constructed monoliths. Our just protest for an Africa with linguistic agency must not turn us into the same masters of imperialist dogma we’re still yet to hold accountable.”

PHOTO: “My mother tongue is my childhood, my land and country.” - Artist Unknown, Source.

monochromaticblack:

by request here’s my final list of recommended blogs that highlight various aspects of Africa/African countries. enjoy! Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Africa the Continent

• http://panafrique.tumblr.com

• …

soafrolicious:

bossbarbiie:

Lmfaooooooo!!!! Nigerian Barbie wedding!!! Hahahahagaggag LOVE!!!! #nigerian #barbie #ken

real tears, b.

Too REAL. haha!

spectraspeaks:

Join Spectra Speaks for a live live podcast about African women in the Diaspora using new media and technology to subvert and influence mainstream narratives about Africa: African Women Storytellers in the Digital Age.

We’ll be pontificating on mainstream storytelling about Africa, the role of western media and social media innovations (both on the continent and in the Diaspora) in shaping these narratives. 

Follow the host @spectraspeaks on Twitter; use the hashtag #africanwomenmedia to join the conversation. 

More details about the event, including guest bios and a way to submit your questions and thoughts for discussion here. 

thepeoplesrecord:

Barely 16-year-old white model poses in ‘African Queen’ editorial
Feb 25, 2013

Here we go again. Here’s 16-year-old white model Ondria Hardin; she’s doused in a very deep bronze in an editorial for Numéro magazine called “African Queen”. Ugh. Foudre makes the excellent point/sums it up with, “why hire a black model when you could just paint a white one!”

Maybe it’s because the magazine just couldn’t find a black model? Maybe there are none, and it’s just not a profession that appeals to anyone but young, tall, skinny, white girls? They’re probably the only ones who enjoy traveling around the world and getting paid tons of money to be pretty? I know, I know, modeling is much more than that — don’t listen to me, I can barely smize! — but you get the point. It appears diversity also floundered at NYC’s fashion week this year, with over 82 percent of the models being white.

However, the same agency that represents Ondria Hardin has several black women in their pool. It’s a much (MUCH) tinier pool than the amount of white models they represent, but it does exist. And if none of those women are quite right, there are about a gazillion other places to look. There’s no excuse for using a barely 16-year-old white girl in an “African Queen” spread.

It’s impossible to look at this and not ache for young women of color who want to pursue careers in modeling (and arguably, fashion by extension). When they don’t see themselves on the runway or in magazines, it could be very easy for them to think, “huh, I guess modeling isn’t for me.” Then the status quo remains, and the runways remain monotone. If jobs for “African Queen” photo spreads aren’t going to black women, what hope is there?

Source

eeloom:

New short documentary on young artists challenging stereotypes about Africans in Toronto

Read More

spectraspeaks:

“You’ve got rules telling me what to do
But is there anybody checkin’ up on you?”

Award-winning acoustic soul artist, Shishani, has just released the music video for her latest single titled, “Minority”, a catchy, upbeat, acoustic track that calls for freedom and equality for all people despite perceived differences.

Shishani got her big break when she performed at the 2011 Namibian Annual Music Awards in the capital city of Windhoek, where it’s still illegal to be gay. And though, she says, she’s made no real attempts to hide her sexuality, she hasn’t come out as an “out lesbian artist” till now.

“I wanted people to get to know my music,” she says, “Sexuality doesn’t matter. It’s like pasta — asking if you prefer spaghetti or macaroni. It just doesn’t matter… I’m an artist first, before being a gay artist.”

The release of “Minority” is timely; January is the month in which outspoken Ugandan LGBT activist, David Kato was bludgeoned to death in an anti-gay attack three years ago, sparking an outcry from fellow African human rights activists. January is also the month in which people in the U.S.–perhaps even all over the world–celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a powerful civil rights leader and icon. His call for freedom and equality of all people has been taken up by activists all over the world, including Shishani, whose lyrics echo his principles of love and unity.

“Homophobia all over the world comes from the same place; colonialism, apartheid, racial segregation. All our struggles are connected.”

Read the rest of the article here.