Both the magazine's name (Chimurenga is a Shona word that loosely translates as "liberation struggle")[1] and the content capture the connection between African cultures and politics on the continent and beyond.
[2] Its director Ntone Edjabe talks about the magazine and its approach during numerous interviews and conferences also at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Art Academy in Berlin in 2005, at the Dakar Biennale in 2006 and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009.
Chimurenga shies away from the Q&A format and includes deconstructed and imagined interviews, surreal short stories and poetry and other devices that challenge strict notions of fact and fiction.
The first edition showed Peter Tosh at a gig in Eswatini in the early 1980s, pointing an AK-47-shaped guitar in the direction of South Africa and chanting down Babylon.
The magazine has featured work by emerging as well as established voices including Njabulo Ndebele, Lesego Rampolokeng, Santu Mofokeng, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Gael Reagon, Binyavanga Wainaina, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Boubacar Boris Diop, Tanure Ojaide, Dominique Malaquais, Stacy Hardy, Goddy Leye, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Mahmood Mamdani, Jorge Matine, and Greg Tate, among others.
Magazines and publications presented on the Chimurenga Library are: African Film, Amkenah, Black Images, Chief Priest Say, Civil Lines, Ecrans d'Afrique, Frank Talk, Glendora Review, Hambone, Hei Voetsek!, Joe, Autre Afrique, Lamalif, Mfumu'eto, Molotov Cocktail, Moto, Okyeame, Revue Noire, Savacou, Souffles, Spear, Staffrider, Straight No Chaser, The Book of Tongues, The Cricket: Black Music in Evolution, The Liberator Magazine, The Uncollected Writings of Greg Tate, Third Text, Tsotso, Two Tone, Unir Cinéma, Wietie, Y Magazine (first five issues).
Artists, writers and intellectuals who have contributed texts and videos to the Chimurenga Library include: Rustum Kozain, Vivek Narayanan, Patrice Nganang, Khulile Nxumalo, Sean O'Toole, Achal Prabhala, Suren Pillay, Lesego Rampolokeng, Tracey Rose, Ivan Vladislavic, Barbara Murray, Akin Adesokan, Nicole Turner, Tunde Giwa, Brian Chikwava, Judy Kibinge, Olu Oguibe, Sam Kahiga, Mike Abrahams, Sola Olorunyomi, Marie-Louise Bibish Mumbu, Nadi Edwards, Brent Hayes Edwards, Sharifa Rhodes Pitts, Jean-Pierre Bekolo and Aryan Kaganof.
[13] The idea of the presentation is to rethink a library as a laboratory which can trigger curiosity, adventures, critical thinking, activism, entertainment and random reading.
The writers selected and their cities are Akenji Ndumu in Abidjan, Kojo Laing in Cape Town, Funmi Iyanda in Durban, Doreen Baingana in Hargeisa, Chris Abani in Johannesburg, Victor LaValle in Kampala, Nimco Mahamud Hassan in Khartoum, Alain Mabanckou in Lagos, Billy Kahora in Luanda, Nicole Turner in Nairobi, Abdourahman A. Waberi in Salvador, Uzodinma Iweala in Tombouctou and Binyavanga Wainaina in Touba.
Somebody somewhere decided to assemble the aspirations of many of the world's sufferahs under "ah" sounding syllables: amandla; intifada; aluta; sankara; guevarra; zapatista; rasta…whateva you know…one is almost tempted to throw 'kabila' in there (laughs)... im saying 'chimurenga' toes that line.
Escaping the torpor of post-independence in order to do this is in itself therapeutic, considering the heavy dosage of painkillers that make up the current reading diet this side of the Limpopo.