News & Events

The African Studies Centre Leiden is sad to report that Jan Hoorweg passed away in his home in Leiderdorp on 3 August 2022. Jan started to work as a social psychologist at the African Studies Centre in 1967. He continued to work at the ASC up to 2014, ten years after his official retirement. 

On 29 July 1945, Xhosa dramatist, essayist, critic, novelist, historian, biographer, translator and poet Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi died in Ntab'ozuko at the age of 69. His works are regarded as instrumental in standardising the grammar of isiXhosa and preserving the language in the 20th century. Read the Library Weekly!

Jon Abbink produced a new bibliography on Ethiopian-Eritrean studies in society and history. It is a by- product of research he did on these countries in the past five years and is the ultimate volume in the series. It contains all the crucial references to recent work in history, archaeology, sociology, anthropology, economics, agricultural studies, politics, environmental studies etc.

The ASCL Annual Report for 2021 is out now! In addition to an excellent list of publications by our researchers, you will find other highlights such as the Stephen Ellis Annual Lecture on African feminism by Nanjala Nyabola, the Comenius Award for André Leliveld, and the Library acquisition trip to Rwanda.

Strengthening the cooperation between Moroccan, other African, and Dutch institutions for higher education. This was the focus of a two-day seminar at NIMAR (Netherlands Institute Morocco) in Rabat, in which the ASCL's Marleen Dekker, Mayke Kaag and Rahmane Idrissa participated.

On 21 July 1955, writer, poet, novelist, illustrator and academic Véronique Tadjo was born in Paris. Having lived and worked in many countries within the African continent and diaspora, she feels herself to be pan-African, in a way that is reflected in the subject matter, imagery and allusions of her work. Read the Library Weekly!

On 12 July 1929, Sudanese writer and cultural journalist Tayeb Salih was born in Karmakol. He is best known for his novel 'Season of Migration to the North', considered to be one of the most important novels in Arabic literature. His novels and short stories have been translated into English and more than a dozen other languages. Read the Library Weekly!

On 6 July 1937, Bessie Amelia Emery Head was born in Pietermaritzburg. Although she was born in South Africa, she is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer. Bessie Head was born of an illegal union between her white mother and black father at Fort Napier Mental Institution, where her mother was a patient. Read the Library Weekly!

In post-Arab Spring Cairo, two strangers meet and fall in love. If an Egyptian cannot speak English, by Noor Naga, is a story of two people dislocated from their home environments, one by intent and one by necessity. It is the subject of our latest Library Highlight!

Since the democratic transition of 1994, increasing numbers of ‘Khoisan revivalists’ in South Africa are rejecting their coloured identity and engaging in activism as indigenous people. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Cape Town, this book by Rafael Verbuyst takes an unprecedented bottom-up approach.