Items

• In search of a subject

  Sousa Jamba writes critical reviews of both Africa Talks Back, which contains interviews with Anglophone African authors, and The Ordeal of the African Writer, by Charles R. Larson. Of the first, Jamba writes, "Africa Talks Back... reflects the ambitions of a wide range of writers. Some of them, like the Ugandan poet Okot p'Bitek, are long dead; others have gone into obscure retirement. Some, such as Chinua Achebe, Dennis Brutus, Kole Omotoso, Taban Lo Liyong and Njabulo Ndebele, are still active, thugh mainly in the academic world in the West or in South Africa... Today, the all-powerful Big Men who have dominated postcolonial Africa are slowly being forced out and institutions such as Makerere University are, very slowly, recovering their former glory..." Of the second, Jamba writes, "Charles R. Larson, a professor of literature at American University in Washington D.C. outlines some of the major obstacles facing the African writer. These are the parlous state of publishing on the continent, persecution from political authorities, and consequent exile."
• Behind the lines

  This article covers the two-day "crammed and curious" conference called The Politics of Exile, organized by the Third World Foundation and South magazine at the Institute for Contemporary Arts. "The real politicians had stayed away, offering a wide variety of excuses: they didn't feel like entering this kind of forum, it was too potentially compromising, they'd have to have the authority of a central committee... Instead, it was the writers and intellectuals who jostled for space in the programme to talk about the Latin American, African, Middle-Eastern, and South Asian experiences. So the politics were filtered through very self-conscious lenses." Of African poets, Sage writes, "As someone else pointed out, exiles must always be distiguished from refugees, they don't have the collective innocence of victims... Educated and articulate exiles, said the banished South African poet Dennis Brutus (famed as the inspirer of the sporting boycott), form a new wandering tribe -- the Bintu. They've been to conferences on the nature of exile just about everywhere, even Oklahoma."
• Zimbabwe whites head for exit

  "Many prominent intellectuals, some of them former Mugabe supporters have left their homeland already."
• Moscow Blows Hot and Cold on Co-existence

  "The ringing anti-American tone of the new communist manifesto has posed a basic dilemma for Soviet diplomatic policy."
• Katanga Offers Reward

  "The leaflets repeat offers of £3,000 rewards offered by the government for Mr. Lumumba and two of his companions, Mr. Okito and Mr. Mpolo."
• Rebels in Katanga Clash

  "Witch-doctors tell tell tribal warriors that enemy guns can only fire harmless jets of water or mud."
• Katanga Writes Off Tshombe but is Still Defiant

  "Few responsible people in Katanga expect to see President Tshombe again."
• Anti-British Deputy Becomes Ghana High Commissioner

  "Mr. Armah, who is 32, is the chairman of the London Commitee of African Organisations, a highly political group which has organised large-scale demostrations in London against American bases in Britain, apartheid, and the arrest and detention of Patrice Lumumba."
• Russian Envoys Are Back in Congo

  "The Charges the Affairs of Russia, Poland, and Czech Republic presented their credentials to the Congolsese foreign ministry."
• 17 Die in Clash over Gizenga

  "Mr. Genzenga self-appointed political heir of the late Patrice Lumumba has refused to leave his "stronghold" of Stanleyville in the Orientale province, and play his part in the Central Government."
• Gizenga Must now Face the Music

  "Mr. Gizenga self styled-heir of the former Congo Premier Mr. Patrice Lumumba, arrived ar Leopoldville today, after four months' absence to face charges from the parliament of beginning his own movement of secession against the authority of the Central Government."
• The Student 'Run' to Moscow

  "Foriegn students at Moscow's Frienship University, later renamed in honour of Congo nationalist leader, Patrice Lumumba."
• Even Gagarin Can't Save Youth Festival

  "Some African delegates from the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow are dissapointed because they have only been given only five roubles spending money --with the rouble a non convertible curency."
• Lumumba Conundrum

  "What a conunudrum Lumamaba is!"
• Adoula controls all Congo except for Katanga

  "Stanely's stautue has been put back on its plinth while the authorities are still debating whether to remove the monument to Patrice Lumumba."
• War is over in Katanga—but a new crisis starts

  "The Central Government with the backing of Dr. Nkrumah is bringing strong pressure to bear on the UN to place him on trial for waging war on the world body, as well as for his alleged complicity in the murder of Patrice Lumumba."
• 'Saviour' Tshombe may help himself to power

  "Followers of the late Patrice Lumumba have started another rising in Stanleyville to the north."
• The Sick Mind of China

  "Halfway through the play the murder of Patrice Lumumba was announced."
• Patrice Lumumba

  "His very strengths, the courage and integrity of his commitment, the confidence in his own power were his vulnerabilities in the peculiar cruelty of this situation."
• Tshombe: the big double-cross

  "The timing of the kidnapping whether a freelance effort (for over a year there has been a standing offer of 25,000 dollars put up by "the friends of the Patrice Lumumba," payable in Switzerland, to anyone who could get Tshombe into any country where he could be brought to justice") or backed by the Mobutu's government, was brilliantly planned."
• Lumumba Stamp

  "Moscow Tuesday.--New Soviet stamps include one bearing the potrait of Patrice Lumumba, the murderd Premier of the Congo."--Reuter
• Provocative view of Hammarskjold

  "He accuses him of bungling in the Congo and of being responsible for the death of its Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba."
• The Week Ahead

  "King Badouin of the Belgians, treated to a bitter anti-colonial tirade by Patrice Lumumba when he visited Leopoldville for Congo's independence, returns to the city now Kinshasa, for 25th anniversary celebrations."
• We're sorry, say Russians

  "The Soviet Government has appologiised and promised to pay for damage caused by demonstrators who attacked the Belgian embassy in Moscow last month after the murder of Patrice Lumumba."
• Big Assembly Victory For Mr. Lumumba

  "Mr. Patrice Lumumba, the 34 year old leader of the Congolese Nationalist Movement N. M. C. was tonight officially asked to form the Congo's first natinalist movement."