On the Postcolony

Friday, 12 June, 2015 - 17:30
WiSER and Wits University Press are delighted to invite you to come to the launch of the
first African edition of Achille Mbembe’s pathbreaking book On the Postcolony
(first published by University of California Press in 2001, since translated into numerous
languages).
 
Achille Mbembe’s
 
On the
POSTCOLONY
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Published by Wits University Press
 
From Achille Mbembe’s Preface to the African Edition:

I wrote most of On the Postcolony at night. It was in the early 1990’s, as the deep shadow
of Afro-Marxism was receding. Then, it seemed as if the study of Africa was caught in a
dramatic analytical gridlock……….This is when I decided to write a book that would make space
for resonances and interferences across different modes of thinking. The best way to do this was to
explore what a political and aesthetic critique of the Father might look like in Africa of the last quarter of
the twentieth century and how a critique of the Father (the ‘Thing’ and its doubles) would enable us to write
an alternative history of our present……Of On the Postcolony, it can therefore be said that
it is an attempt to uncover what lies underneath the mask of the Father.
 
- From Isabel Hofmeyr’s new foreword:

Spread across South African university libraries are several dozen copies of On the Postcolony.
Yet, at any one time, one will be hard-pressed to locate a copy. Many will be out with students
preparing their essays on Achille Mbembe’s thought. But in other cases, the book will have been
out for months on end and is unlikely to be returned. These ‘kidnapped’ copies have entered a select
club – namely those books that are in such demand that they are routinely stolen from South African
libraries and bookshops. Along with Mbembe, Steve Biko and Frantz Fanon are two current favourites.
Their books have compulsive powers ……On the Postcolony is a book that speaks compellingly to
our present predicaments and vibrates with the reflexes of the future. It is a book that is likely to continue
to be stolen from libraries for some years.
 
 
Speakers include Harry Garuba (University of Cape Town) and Isabel Hofmeyr (Wits University)

Chair: Sarah Nuttall (WiSER)
 
 
Thursday, 11th June 2015
6pm
WiSER Seminar Room,

6th Floor, Richard Ward Building,
East Campus, Wits University

Drinks and Snacks will be served

RSVP: by Tuesday 9 June to info.witspress@wits.ac.za
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