Keeping Africa Close

How to stay connected to Southern Africa

when the pandemic keeps us apart, find movies, music and more.

Movies

• Queen of Katwe (Uganda), DVD

• Queen Sono (So Africa), Netflix

• The Woman Who Loves Giraffes (So Africa)

• The DC Environmental Film Festival

• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Malawi), Netflix

• Atlantics (Frenh: Atlantique) (Senegal), Netflix

• The Lost Kingdoms of Africa, Gus Casley-Hayford (director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.), go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpz8h_MFkWgorhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0Ibgnbl

Music

• Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi, Greatest Hits: The Tuku Years (Zimbabwe)

• Lucky Dube (Zimbabwe)

• Soweto Gospel Choir (South Africa)

• Ladysmith Black Mambazo (South Africa)

• Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints, Paul Simon (South Africa)

• Hugh Masekela, dubbed the Father of South African jazz

• Johnny Clegg, had a band Juluka and formed another band Savuka. He was an activist, a storyteller, spoke Zulu and told stories through his music

• Thandiswa Mazwai, incredible voice and currently quite an influential voice on the South African music scene.

Books

• The Covenant, James Michener’s history of South Africa

• No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, Alexander McCall Smith (Botswana)

• The Awakened Woman, Tererai Trent (Zimbabwe)

• The Mind of South Africa, Allister Sparks. Historical read although it pertains to South Africa, it can be applied to the rest of the continent in terms of colonial rule.

• I will always write back, Martin Ganda and Caitlin Alifrenka (Zimbabwe)

• When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa, Pete Godwin (Zimbabwe)

• The Lost Kingdoms of Africa, Discovering Africa’s Hidden Treasures, Gus Casley-Hayford

Misc

• Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture and Exchange Across Medieval Saharan Africa, Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, go to: https://caravansofgold.org/exhibition/

• What Might Africa Teach the World? Covid-19 and Ebola Virus Disease Compared, from African Arguments, at https://afrianarguments.org/2020/03/17/what-might-africa-teach-the-world-covid-19-and-ebola-virus-disease-compared/