-
Spoon and Shrapnel: Verse and Wartime Recipes
USD $ 10.00 – USD $ 12.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageSpoon and Shrapnel: Verse and Wartime Recipes
Spoon and Shrapnel uniquely combines poetry and recipes to explore the experience of surviving the Iran-Iraq War through a child’s eyes. As a survivor herself, Sheema Kalbasi brings forth raw memories of fear, loss, and resilience through verse, while accompanying these poignant moments with simple, nourishing recipes that sustained her family amidst scarcity and danger. Each poem is paired with a recipe, alternating between the emotional depth of poetry and the practical art of cooking traditions that offered hope during wartime. The poems deliver vivid, emotional insights into life during the conflict, while the recipes—crafted with scarce ingredients—represent moments of comfort and survival. Together, they form a narrative tapestry where food and poetry intertwine, reflecting how one family, and an entire culture, persevered.
Kalbasi’s work goes beyond her personal experience to present a universal story of resilience, illustrating how, even in the harshest conditions, humanity finds strength in the simple rituals of cooking, eating, and storytelling. Spoon and Shrapnel is a tribute to both physical and emotional survival, offering readers a rare glimpse into everyday life during war.Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
The Second Coming
USD $ 10.00 – USD $ 22.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageThe Second Coming
In the remnants of a fractured UK, England is on the brink of collapse where far-right militias rise to power. As Islamophobia and English nationalism ignite brutal violence, 19-year-old Marah Sultana is thrust into a fight for survival. Hunted by forces seeking control, she carries a secret powerful enough to change the course of the war—and the future of the world. In a world in which America’s reign as a superpower has crumbled, its mercenaries now rule in its shadow,In The Second Coming, Tariq Mehmood delivers a searing, unflinching narrative that mirrors his own lifelong struggle for justice. This novel is not just fiction—it’s a reflection of real-world battles. Mehmood’s powerful storytelling compels readers to confront uncomfortable truths while offering a gripping, emotional journey of resistance and survival.
A dystopian desi mash-up of The Handmaid’s Tale, Clockwork Orange, and V for Vendetta. The Second Coming warns of the dangers of right-wing nationalism and white supremacy and imagines where such hate could take England if it is not, somehow, nipped in the bud. — Paul Cochrane, journalist, Middle East Eye
A must-read dystopian fantasy about race, religion, and love. Unmissable – Melvin Burgess, novelist, winner of the Carnegie Medal and the LA prize for Teenage Fiction
An unforgettable novel, both vivid and nightmarishly plausible. — Peter Kalu, novelist, storyteller, playwright and poet.
A story of resilience and hope told against the brutal realities of patriarchy and colonial violence.
— Amrit Wilson, activist, feminist, and author of Finding a Voice: Asian Women in Britain (Daraja Press)Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Night Settles Upon The City
USD $ 15.00 – USD $ 16.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageNight Settles Upon The City
Written with urgency out of a war-time Beirut, this poetry collection registers the griefs and the heroism of the Lebanese, under siege yet again. Sabbagh lends his lyrical voice here, to give a voice to the voiceless, trying to find some harmonic sense out of catastrophe. This book will compel readers, both Lebanese and those with any kind of human heart. While much of the work was written swiftly, on impulse, and almost like, as one of the poem’s title’s has it, a ‘War Diary,’ in verse, this work aims nonetheless to last in its significance and resonance at a time when the world as a whole (let alone Lebanon herself) has become so unpredictable, so fickle and so perilous. Night Settles Upon The City aims to be a worthwhile addition to the contemporary literature of war and, more specifically, to the literary representations of the modern Lebanese reality and experience.
Omar Sabbagh is a poet who is privileged to write about war and destruction from the relative safety of his study. But this double-edged illusion is insidious — mental and emotional inwardly, and physical for those who are directly under attack. It is visceral, political, heart-wrenching — yet the poet seeks out light and hope through the act of writing, for the sake of ownership and sharing. He may say that “I cannot read minds and nor / will I ever wish to”, but he writes for the importance of record-keeping, seeking solace, both private and public — as the Night Settles Upon The City of Beirut.
— Sudeep Sen, Winner of the Rabindranath Tagore Literary PrizeOmar Sabbagh has long brought us a world in which personal experience stitches a hyphen between the eastern Mediterranean and the northerly British archipelago. Now he makes the tension inherent within that richness explicit, in a love-letter to his family and home city of Beirut. Written while the ‘night’ of war ‘settles upon the city’, his introductory ‘Thoughts’ show us how unthinkable war remains, even when it arrives on the doorstep. This is a book of witness to what cannot happen, and yet does.
– Fiona Sampson, Professor Fiona Sampson MBE FRSL.Two-Way Mirror: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning WW Norton 2022 – Washington Post Book of the Year, New York Times Editors’ Choice, finalist Plutarch Prize, finalist PEN Jacqueline Bograd Award, Sunday Times Paperback of the year.The poet Omar Sabbagh lives in Beirut. His voice is playful, almost surreal at times. He talks of ‘the hairbrained monocle of war’ and suggests that if you live long enough in a place like Beirut ‘laughter becomes a lover’s distance-giving kiss’. Night Settles Upon the City offers us a poetry that is neither ideological nor partisan, not of the frontline but of a deeply threatened warzone. Its terms are easy-going, sorrowful, humane, formally intelligent and tinged with apprehension. It is humanity being human. Reading it is relief and hope.’
— George Szirtes FRSL, Eliot Prize winner.Night Settles Upon the City by Omar Sabbagh is a profoundly reflective and evocative collection that blends personal experience with the brutal realities of life in a war-torn Beirut. Through a tapestry of poems, essays, and prose, Sabbagh explores the intersections of love, grief, intellectual contemplation, and the relentless backdrop of violence. The writing oscillates between moments of tender introspection and stark depictions of societal collapse, embodying a kind of philosophical meditation on suffering and survival. Sabbagh’s voice is distinctively lyrical, capturing both the intimacy of individual loss and the broader existential weight of conflict. His reflections on war and its aftermath are imbued with a sense of historical consciousness, yet deeply grounded in the immediacy of personal anguish and resilience. The collection is not just about bearing witness to destruction, but also about finding fragments of humanity amidst the ruins. A haunting and powerful work that invites readers into the fragile space between beauty and despair.—Dr. Pamela Chrabieh, Kulturnest Co-founder & Managing Director
The Arabic term for poet means the one who feels, unlike the Greek origin of poetry, which describes the craft itself. Omar Sabbagh is the quintessential poet in the Arabic sense. In this collection, he vibrates with Beirut, where he now lives, at a time when the city’s famous cultural vibrations are overwhelmed by murderous quakes caused by the Israeli war machine.
—Gilbert Achcar, Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS University of London.Beirut’s Omar Sabbagh, lover of beauty, poet of lush lyrical power, addresses the spirit of the great Dr. Edward W. Said in one poem, saying these troubled seasons make him “restless now in (his) resting place.” I’m captivated by a further description of Said, “living paper, breathing ink of one whose thoughts still seem to think.” There is healing in such sensitive recognition. Wise voices we always needed are suddenly needed desperately. Sabbagh invokes his love for a precious home frequently under siege and his care for all the people who made and surround him. Gratitude for the wisdom, kindness and rich affections of Night Settles Upon the City.—Naomi Shihab Nye, recipient Lifetime Achievement in Poetry Award, the Wallace Stevens prizeIn Night Settles on the City, Omar Sabbagh gives voice to the bewilderment, fear, rage, and despair so many of us in the Middle East are currently feeling. His eloquent, tender poems grapple with the impossibility—yet absolute necessity—of language at a moment when words otherwise fail. Like all the best poems, Sabbagh’s challenge, soothe, haunt, and rehumanize us, ultimately arousing our better selves.
—Mai Al-Nakib, author of An Unlasting Home and The Hidden Light of ObjectsBoth erudite and demotic, felt through the body and ‘guided by ear’ Omar Sabbagh’s voice powers through the remote attacks on Beirut – the city in which he currently lives – the hourly atrocities and unspeakable suffering to reach us and to speak for us. ‘What’s to understand?’ he asks ‘That murder can be finessed?’ In his seminal new collection, Night Settles Upon the City, night becomes a ‘dark and violent animal’ with its ‘panther’s pelt’ of terror ‘slowly curving round us’ through which we hear the voice of the aggressor reflecting that ‘…each murderous attack/ I order seems to drain this world of innocence.’ Yet Sabbagh’s own voice remains measured, balanced, especially in the portraits he paints of his beloved father…‘It gets worse each day watching him/ ageing’ (‘The Old Man and his Walking Stick’). This poem ends with the lines ‘an old man and his son, fighting a war/ in a warzone we all must visit’. Alongside unimaginable horror we are shown the ordinary griefs and losses that we all suffer – of ageing, of failing, of being human; and it’s the humanity and compassion with which Sabbagh bears witness that will secure this book’s future among the handful of classics that will come to define our era.
— Jenny Lewis, MA Oxon., MPhil., PhD, Tutor for Poetry, Oxford UniversitySelect options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Then He Sent Prophets
USD $ 15.00 – USD $ 20.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageThen He Sent Prophets
Morocco, 1359. The people of Fes are living in deprivation under the rule of an unjust sultan. Zakaria is a young Muslim scholar trying to sustain his family while committing to a rigid moral code. To provide for his sickly daughter, he sacrifices his principles and seeks a job at the palace, where he gradually becomes entangled in a web of intrigue, his conscience tormented by serving the sultan. In the hope of fleeing from the constraints of his world, he joins the quest of Muhammad ibn Yusuf, the exiled king of Granada, and his enchanting sister, Aisha, to reclaim their throne. Together, they set out to Andalusia on a journey that will call into question all of Zakaria’s beliefs and change the history of the Iberian Peninsula for decades to come.
Then He Sent Prophets is a story about the suffering of young idealists in a world of inevitable compromise. Throughout his journey, Zakaria faces internal struggles that are timeless and universal, strives to reconcile his faith with the world, doubts the motives behind his desire to live morally, and ends up wondering whether a life consisting of one compromise after another is one worth living.
Then He Sent Prophets is a novel for our moment. Set around the political struggles of fourteenth-century Granada, it is a deeply sympathetic and passionately human look at how one might make—or fail to make—moral, decent choices when living in a violent, indecent world.
— Marcia Lynx Qualey, founding editor of ArabLitCircumstances present Zakaria with a position at the palace. […] Can someone critical of the sultan and conscious of his corruption maintain integrity while serving at the palace? And what’s the line between complete innocence and partial complicity? These are the questions at the crux of his ethical dilemma. […] It’s easy to make connections between Zakaria’s inner dilemmas and those many of us grapple with today.
— Hafsa Lodi in The New ArabSelect options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Beside the Sickle Moon: A Palestinian Story
USD $ 0.00 – USD $ 16.99Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageBeside the Sickle Moon: A Palestinian Story
Beside the Sickle Moon is near future literary activism based on Israel’s occupation of Palestine. The story tells a first person narrative through Laeth Awad, a Palestinian who lives above his convenience store experiencing days pass through smoke clouds with his cousin Aylul. One night upon returning to their village from Ramallah they encounter an Israeli checkpoint within the buffer zone that hadn’t been there before. It isn’t long until the two stumble upon Israel’s plans to construct a luxury hotel for incoming settlers, Ma’al Luz. Demolition crews and military personnel are due to fulfill this contract in the months to come and with them as overseer is the infamous Meir Cohen, a Mossad operative who played a key role in the fall of Gaza.
Aylul believes from their father, an Al Qassam militant who died in the battle for Jericho, that only the threat of annihilation breeds the best of human action. They use their contacts to connect with the factions, who grant them strength to defend their village from occupation. With these resources in hand Aylul forms Al Mubarizun, a group crowning themselves Palestine’s final resistance.
Laeth doubts the existence of a future, lost in philosophical ambivalence as he tries to follow his cousin into the depths of guerrilla warfare. He questions the futility of resistance when all former allies have normalized relations with Israel. And what of the innocents on the other side of the Wall who had no say in where they were born? Though a minority of the population, he is not alone in this sentiment. Palestinian youth begin to empathize with this logic enough to create a new social movement, the Forgotten Ones. Coining the derogatory term that their critics slung, the NGO advocates for a peaceful transition to Israel’s colonization where most Palestinians hear whimpers of surrender.
Set in a hauntingly plausible future, where Israel has marked a century of Palestinian occupation … As a novel of the future, Beside the Sickle Moon is, unsurprisingly, preoccupied with temporality, attempting to reconcile the vastness of macro-historical events with the immediacy of everyday life. … One of the most chilling features of Husien’s novel as history is the world’s renewed abandonment of Palestine. In a future of systemic global crisis, nations have closed ranks and shut their eyes. Israeli mines run on the slave labor of Palestinian captives, and refugee camps have become invisibilized death zones … — Londiwe Gamedze https://africasacountry.com/2024/11/reading-the-present-as-history
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
Episodes From a Colonial Present
Editors and Authors: Daniel Bendix, Chandra-Milena Danielzik, Franziska Müller, Lata Narayanaswamy, Juan Telleria, Miriam friz Trzeciak, Aram Ziai
Artists: Hangula Werner, Roshni Vyam, Michel Esselbrügge, Qi Zhou, RotmInas – Rotmi Enciso & Ina Riaskov, Maite Mentxaka Tena, Lena Ziyal
Postcolonial critique reveals the traces of the colonial past in every corner of our present lives and exposes the colonial violence inherent in global inequality. This collective comic project illuminates the coloniality of everyday life as well as the decolonising potential of everyday struggles in the spaces, discourses and practices of so-called global development.
Reviews
What an absolute impertinence! My lawyers are already involved. It’s just as well that I was able to use tax money for the purchase.
—Queen Elizabeth III love true crime books, but this one got a bit boring after a while. It could do with more bloodshed.
—Lothar von TrothaI added this book to my list to burn. Just saying.
—Diego de LandaA waste of time. So glad I didn’t buy it, but stole my copy.
—Christopher ColumbusI didn’t get it. Are they suggesting colonialism is not quite over?
—Harry S. TrumanSelect options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Palestine Wail: Poems
USD $ 0.00 – USD $ 18.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pagePalestine Wail: Poems
Renowned aphorist Yahia Lababidi’s Palestine Wail writes alongside a catastrophe beyond words, trying to shelter in words what remains of our humanity. To be a Minister of Loneliness and Lightkeeper, tending to the light. — Philip Metres, author of Fugitive/Refuge
Palestine is personal for writer, Yahia Lababidi. His Palestinian grandmother, Rabiha Dajani — educator, activist & social worker — was forced to flee her ancestral home in Jerusalem, at gunpoint, some eighty years ago.
As an Arab-American, Lababidi feels deeply betrayed by the USA’s blind support of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.
In Palestine Wail, he reminds us that religion is not politics, Judaism is not Zionism, and to criticize the immoral, illegal actions of Israel is not antisemitism — especially since, as an Arab, Lababidi is a Semite, himself.
Using both poetry and prose, Lababidi reflects on how we are neither our corrupt governments, nor our compromised media. Rather, we are partners in humanity, members of one human family. Not in Our Name will the unholy massacres of innocent Palestinians be committed (two-thirds of whom are women and children) nor in the false name of ‘self-defense’.
In turn, Lababidi reminds us that starvation as a weapon of war is both cruel and criminal, as is collective punishment.
Palestine Wail invites us to bear witness to this historical humanitarian crisis, unfolding in real-time, while not allowing ourselves to be deceived, intimidated or silenced. We are made aware of the basic human truths that no lasting peace can be founded upon profound injustice and that the jailor is never Free…
Yahia Lababidi, an Arab-American writer of Palestinian background, has crafted a poignant collection which serves as a heartfelt tribute to the Palestinian people, their struggles, and their resilience in the face of an ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing.
The collection, described as a love letter to Gaza, draws inspiration from the rich literary tradition of Palestinian resistance literature. Lababidi, known for his critically-acclaimed books of aphorisms, essays, and poetry, brings his unique voice to this personal, political and spiritual work.
Palestine Wail addresses us in a variety of voices: outrage, lamentation and pity, in attempting to honor the pain of the oppressed Palestinian people, while also celebrating their enduring spirit.
Lababidi’s Wail, ultimately, is a prayerful work seeking peace, healing and reconciliation—a testament to the transformative power of literature to keep hope alive in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
These are necessary and truthful poems. Yahia Lababidi powerfully illuminates this heartbreaking time and terrible season in the history of our world. This book, like a lantern in darkness, brings to light the truth of lives we must learn to honor and remember. — James Crews, author of Unlocking the Heart: Writing for Mindfulness, Creativity, and Self-Compassion
Yahia Lababidi’s stunning and resonant collection, Palestine Wail, addresses the outrage felt by many of the oppressed Palestinian supporters and more. He also speaks of the lamentations of his people and the show of pity, compassion, and empathy from many members of the human family from all around the world. — The Indefatigable Longing For Peace And Rapprochement In Yahia Lababidi’s Palestine Wail By Michael Parker.
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
Oh, Sorry! Rituals of Forgiveness, Crises and Social Struggles in Postmodern Capitalism
As the world grapples with the legacy of crimes of enslavement, colonialism, genocide and mass killings, imprisonment and murder of children, attempts at eliminating cultures and history of Indigenous peoples, looting and other crimes against humanity, the performance of public atonement has become increasingly prevalent. Apologies from state actors and institutions are issued in solemn ceremonies, often acknowledging the collective guilt for historical atrocities. Despite the solemnity of these events, there is a growing scepticism surrounding the sincerity of these apologies, particularly when they are not accompanied by tangible reparations, healing, reconciliation or systemic change. This scepticism is rooted in a perception that these acts of contrition are sometimes less about making amends to the aggrieved and more about assuaging the guilt of the aggressors and maintaining the status quo, providing the illusion of progress without the substance.
In this compelling work, Oh, Sorry! Rituals of Forgiveness, Crises and Social Struggles in Postmodern Capitalism, the authors unveil the complex interplay between public apologies, social justice and popular mobilisations. The chapters are devoted primarily to the experiences of Latin America, particularly of Mexico, Guatemala, Chile, and Brazil. But there is also a chapter on the struggles for Palestine — so relevant in the face of the current genocidal invasion by the Zionist State of Israel into Gaza, the world’s largest and most densely populated concentration camp.Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
The Unfinished Business of Liberation and Transformation: Revisiting The 1958 All-African People’s Conference
This book features essays, speeches, and reflections from the 60th-anniversary commemoration of the All-African People’s Conference (AAPC), an epochal event in the history of Africa’s fight for liberation. The four-day conference was a collaboration between the Institute of African Studies, the Trades Union Congress of Ghana, the Socialist Forum of Ghana, Lincoln University, and the Third World Network Africa. The stories, essays, speeches, and poems featured in this book are not simply a reflection of the past – they are a call to action for the present and future generations of Pan‑Africanists. May this book serve as a reminder that our liberation is intertwined with the liberation of others and that we must work together toward building a more just and equitable world. Let us continue to inspire the next generation of Pan-Africanists and keep the spirit of the All‑African People’s Conference alive. The book offers valuable perspectives on Africa’s current predicaments and what a truly liberated Africa can offer to the world.
The Unfinished Business of African Liberation is a path‐breaking collection of proceedings commemorating the 1958 landmark All African People’s Conference. The volume is essential reading for all those interested in pursuing African decolonization and liberation in the 21st century.
— Amina Mama, Professor, Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies, University of California, Davis, former Kwame Nkrumah Chair in African Studies at the University of GhanaIt is a must‐read for all who care about the contemporary plight of African people.
— Sylvia Tamale, Decolonial feminist & Professor of Law, School of Law, Makerere University, UgandaThis collection presents critical thinking by a wide spectrum of Pan‐African workers, youth, women, students, intellectuals, businesspeople, activists, academics, and politicians. — Adotey Bing-Pappoe, Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics and International Business, University of Greenwich
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Elsewhereness: Antipoetry
USD $ 6.99 – USD $ 15.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageElsewhereness: Antipoetry
The book is a literary project with extra-literary objectives and implications. The texts combine various original writing styles to provoke the reader’s creative imagination and make auratic social space attainable. For realizing its main goal, through its creative aesthetics, the book debases normalized forms of social violence, exclusionism, and tribalism. It is meant to be universally relatable by an average reader regardless of her perceived and proclaimed identities. In a way, it is an embodiment of postnihilism, which is a philosophical theory that emphasizes the significance of negativity in the face of unspoken social rules of exclusionism. Postnihilism has been theorized in Revolutionary Hope After Nihilism (Bloomsbury 2022). “Auratic space” is a concept advanced in Totalitarian Space and the Destruction of Aura(SUNY Press 2019) and The Death of Home (De Gruyter 2024).
S. Bahozde’s (Saladdin Ahmed) Elsewhereness antipoetry actualizes its stated marching orders via forceful dialectical serial logic and keen humor (hilarity, really). This book is an “act of attacking the unimaginability of a better world. The Bikonian-Fanonian bursts of anti-poetics, their counter-measures break past the givens to model how such—proper name, place, political calculus—engender and resist, repel and authorize cunning sequences of anti-capitalist trespass. An (anti-) poetics that playfully negates its aesthetic medium of refusal and choice, all the while setting its sights on its key mark: encroaching nihilism in the face of brutal displacement. S. Bahozde’s work dismantles claims in favor of negations, clearing forth space for open-ended, future liberatory claims. Its poetry as propositional logic’s meditations on completion, works, and absence is shudderingly smart. This is poetry as food fueling revolutionary exilic work.”
— Jeremy Matthew Glick, Professor African Diasporic Literature and Modern Drama. Hunter College, English Department, City University of New York, author of The Black Radical TragicA voice speaks here which is at once profoundly Kurdish and cosmopolitan. While tracing the melancholy of the spaces of exile, its loneliness and longing, Bahozde takes the reader into spaces where the disillusionment with history does not lead to nihilism. Here the brevity of aphorism tackles the tangled metaphysics of absence and existence. Here is a foreignness that take us away from “pickled banalities” and disturbs our complacent belonging to places, nations, and histories
— Rohit Dalvi, professor of philosophy, Brock University, author of Deleuze and Guattari ExplainedThis is a passionate and bold set of works that range over topics and concerns widely with an almost febrile intensity. Bahozde’s poetic negations of “normalcy” gain their strength both from rich philosophical insights and from a searching, provocative imagination. Even when set in moments of apparent languor, they have an evident, restless energy.
— Gaurav Majumdar, Whitman College; author, Illegitimate Freedom: Informality in Modernist Literature, 1900-1940Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Being Anti-Colonial
USD $ 5.00 – USD $ 25.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageBeing Anti-Colonial
Being Anti-Colonial by Jayan Nayar presents a profound critique of the contemporary engagements with ‘decolonial theory’ and the popular usage of ‘decolonisation’. This work argues that much of the current discourse within critical theory tends to overlook the intricate, essentially praxiological underpinnings of the anti-colonial struggle, thereby comfortably situating itself within the post-colonial status quo. Nayar’s book serves as a radical call to authentically re-engage with the anti-colonial ethos, emphasizing the necessity to confront the enduring architectures of coloniality that define our present. Distinctly divided into two parts, the book first elucidates the conceptual groundwork to reconceptualise ‘anti-colonial’ as a philosophical stance deeply entwined with the fabric of the global (post)colonial reality. Through meticulously argued philosophical foundations, Nayar underscores the (post)colonial present as a state of ‘resettlement’, where the architecture of post-colonial world-making loses sight of its colonial matrices. Being Anti-Colonial is both an invitation and a challenge to the academic community to critically revisit and re-energize the conversation about coloniality.
With his impressive scholarship, Jayan Nayar challenges critics of coloniality, himself included, to question their standpoints. Critical scholars are implicated in assuming the reality of a post-colonial world as ‘(b)ordered’ but requiring reform and justice. Through an incisive critique of coloniality, of the idea of ‘Europe’ of ‘Blacked Lives Matter’ of ‘Zionist-Israelism’, he demands engagement on the frontline of anti-colonial struggles of the violated, subjugated, impoverished ‘subjects’ of (post) colonial normality. — Abdul Paliwala, Professor of Law at School of Law, University of Warwick
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Bongoman and the Aliens
USD $ 16.25Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageBongoman and the Aliens
There have been a series of mysterious disappearances within Bongoman’s tranquil Eastlands Estate in Nairobi’s urban sprawl. The missing persons reappear days later with no recollection of where they have been and with altered personalities. In the course of his investigations, Bongoman bumps into an alien being who is also looking for him to enlist his services to help in fighting another alien race, building a force to annihilate humankind and take over the earth. Bongoman’s scepticism about the existence of aliens is tested as he finds himself forming an alliance of convenience with a star-hopper from a race that can move through dimensions and journey across space at will. Bongoman and his alien partner find themselves in a desperate race against time as they take on an aggressive race of aliens with seemingly invincible powers as they seek to undo what has been done and rid the world of this super race of invaders. In the war to save the world, the duo has to deal with aliens who have taken over the ‘essence’ of human beings and have mingled with the population. Bongoman must single them out and expel the alien within to save the poor souls.Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Bongoman and the Golden Boots
USD $ 16.25Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageBongoman and the Golden Boots
There have been a series of mysterious disappearances within Bongoman’s tranquil Eastlands Estate in Nairobi’s urban sprawl. The missing persons reappear days later with no recollection of where they have been and with altered personalities. In the course of his investigations, Bongoman bumps into an alien being who is also looking for him to enlist his services to help in fighting another alien race, building a force to annihilate humankind and take over the earth. Bongoman’s scepticism about the existence of aliens is tested as he finds himself forming an alliance of convenience with a star-hopper from a race that can move through dimensions and journey across space at will. Bongoman and his alien partner find themselves in a desperate race against time as they take on an aggressive race of aliens with seemingly invincible powers as they seek to undo what has been done and rid the world of this super race of invaders. In the war to save the world, the duo has to deal with aliens who have taken over the ‘essence’ of human beings and have mingled with the population. Bongoman must single them out and expel the alien within to save the poor souls.
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Bongoman and the Magic Potion
USD $ 15.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageBongoman and the Magic Potion
Bongoman’s old friend, ‘Prof’, invents a potion that gives that gives someone superhuman strength when ingested, but his assistant, seeking personal benefit, steals a few vials for sale to some shadowy underworld boss. After the gang boss kidnaps the professor’s assistant to get hold of the magic potion’s formula, the professor seeks Bongoman’s assistance to get back his assistant from the crook’s clutches. One of the gang boss’s minions has taken the stolen magic potion and now possesses prodigious strength, wreaking havoc in the neighborhood and imposing a siege on the population. Bongoman must employ all his wits to outsmart his new nemesis. Bongoman finds himself in a full-scale war with an organized criminal gang. He must fight for the soul of his cherished neighborhood. The helpless police also appeal for his assistance in taking down the gang of cutthroats threatening the peace and turning Eastlands into a battleground. This is going to be a bare-knuckle brawl where no prisoners will be taken.
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Bongoman and the Pirates
USD $ 13.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageBongoman and the Pirates
Bongoman wins the lottery and believes this is the answer to all his financial woes. He plans to get into the transport industry by purchasing a ‘matatu’ (passenger van). He seeks a vehicle dealer to assist him import a van but a few days later, Bongoman learns that the ship importing his vehicle has been hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Kenya. With nowhere to turn to for help, Bongoman decides to take matters into his hands. He must travel to Somalia and get back his vehicle! As he embarks on his mission, he unearths the allies of the hijackers who lay a trap for him. He finds himself stranded in the middle of the Indian Ocean where he has to battle sharks, thirst and exposure. He overcomes these obstacles but falls into the hands of the hijackers, who consequently imprison him. Bongoman worms his way into the hearts of his captors after preparing a delicious meal for them and even accept his offer to join them as cook and soldier. The pirate boss orders him to accompany them to hijack another ship and after the attack goes awry, Bongoman miraculously manages to escape capture by an international anti-piracy force. Will Bongoman get back his vehicle? Will his transport business become a reality?
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Bongoman and the Warlords
USD $ 14.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageBongoman and the Warlords
Bongoman lands a job as a reporter and his first assignment for the News Daily is to cover the ongoing war in Somalia between the Transitional Government of Somalia and militant groups in the war-torn country. Bongoman boards a plane to Jowar but due to bad weather the plane is forced to land in Mogadishu, the last place Bongoman wanted to find himself in. The lawless nature of the battle-scarred city catches up with him soon enough. He finds himself at the wrong end of a gun at every turn. He meets an old friend who has a penchant for attracting trouble. To his shock, he learns that she’s running guns for one of the main warlords in the city. He tries to extricate himself from her company but the situation escalates and they both end up in the hands of a regional warlord, who sees in them handsome ransom rewards. An old friend helps Bongoman and his companions escape from their dingy dungeon but they have to contend with a terrorist armed with an RPG. Bongoman has been shot at, blown up, kidnapped and buried in a landslide. It’s time to go back home… but will it be that easy?
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Bongoman Strikes Gold
USD $ 14.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageBongoman Strikes Gold
Bongoman bumps into his perpetually broke friend, Rastafasta, driving a flashy car. Rastafasta discloses the secret to his new-found wealth; he is involved in the gold trade. There is a thriving gold business in the mines of Ikolomani, a bustling little town about 350 km from the city. Bongoman embarks on an epic journey to this Eldorado, with dreams of making big money. Halfway through the journey, the bus breaks down and impatient to get to his destination, he disembarks and continues the journey on foot. He jogs through hills and valleys, hour after hour and finally, thirsty and exhausted he finds himself in a dingy bar where he ingests a potent alcoholic brew unknowingly. Shaken but unfazed he continues his journey which is cut short after a gang of robbers posing as passengers hijack the passenger van he is travelling in. After a decisive reckoning with Bongoman, the robbers find themselves behind bars as Bongoman walks away with a hefty bounty derived from their capture. This windfall quickly evaporates after the crafty van driver spikes his drink. He finally arrives at the gold mines of Ikolomani and to his utter dismay, finds that all is not a bed of roses…
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Bongoman vs Mother-In-Law
USD $ 13.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageBongoman vs Mother-In-Law
Bongoman’s ill-tempered mother-in-law arrives for a visit. Bongoman is far from thrilled as he doesn’t see eye-to-eye with the old lady. She never has a kind word for him, calling him a good-for-nothing bum. The tranquillity of the Bongoman household is turned upside down as the old lady imposes her uncompromising will, harassing Bongoman at every given opportunity, especially his evening forays to the neighbourhood pub. With no peace of mind, Bongoman pushes back and devises a series of tricks to force her out of his house. None of the tricks works out, and Bongoman finds life unbearable in his own house. He reports an assault against him by his mother-in-law to the police but finds himself in jail as the perpetrator of the assault Bongoman storms out of his house in protest after a brief interlude in jail, taking up residence in the local park, where he has to contend with some unsavoury night-time characters for rights to the more comfortable sleeping spaces and has to fight to assert his position in the pecking order. How will Bongoman rid himself of this terrible relative? Does he have any more tricks up his sleeve?
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral
“Never has it been more certain that our victory depends principally on our own actions. Tell no lies, claim no easy victories . . .” —Amílcar Cabral On the centennial of Amílcar Cabral’s birth, and fifty years after his passing, Claim No Easy Victories brings to life the resonance of his thought for today’s freedom movements. World-renowned revolutionary, poet, liberation philosopher, and leader of the anticolonial independence movement of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde, Amílcar Cabral’s legacy stretches well beyond the shores of West Africa. His profound influence on the pan-Africanist movement and the Black liberation movement in the United States and the English-speaking world spans the ages—and is only growing in an era of renewed anti-imperialist internationalist struggle. In this unique collection of essays, radical thinkers from across Africa, the United States, and internationally commemorate Cabral’s life and legacy and his relevance to contemporary struggles for self-determination and emancipation. Claim No Easy Victories serves equally as an introduction or reintroduction to a figure and militant history that the rulers and beneficiaries of global racial capitalism would rather see forgotten. Understanding Cabral then and now sheds light on the necessity of grounding radical change in the creation of theory based on the actual conditions within which movements develop. The depth and dimension of Cabral’s theoretical ideas and revolutionary practice of building popular movements for liberation are assessed by each of the authors and critically reanimated for a new generation of freedom fighters. The book features contributions by: Kali Akuno, Samir Amin, David Austin, Jesse Benjamin, Angela Davis, Bill Fletcher Jr, Mireille Fanon-Mendès France, Lewis Gordon, Firoze Manji, Asha Rodney, Patricia Rodney, Olúfémi Táíwò—and others.
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Insurgent Feminisms: Writing War
USD $ 5.00 – USD $ 35.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageInsurgent Feminisms: Writing War
War is never just the war itself, it’s not the event or the epoch. War is the impossible and unending afterlife, the struggle to breathe after being bludgeoned, and the re-situating of one’s self and of one’s place after displacement and fragmentation.
Insurgent Feminisms: Writing War advances a new paradigm of war writing by focusing on gender. War is always fought upon the backs of women, often under the pretense of saving them. Yet, along the way, the brutalities unleashed on women during wartime remain relentless. In this collection, insurgency emerges in the raw and meticulous language of witnessing, and in the desire to render the space of conflict in radically different ways. These feminist and queer perspectives on war come out of regions and positions that disobey the rules of war writing. Comprising reportage, fiction, memoir, poetry, and conversations from over sixty writers, the collection includes contributions by Chika Unigwe, Nathalie Handal, Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, Suchitra Vijayan, Bélen Fernández, Uzma Falak, Otoniya Juliane Okot Bitek, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Lara Pawson, Gaiutra Bahadur, Robtel Neajai Pailey, Sumana Roy and Lina Mounzer, among several others.
Bhakti Shringarpure co-founded Warscapes magazine in November 2011 and it has now transitioned into the Radical Books Collective.
Veruska Cantelli is a writer, translator, editor, and Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Champlain College in Vermont, USA.
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page