News & Events

On 7 July, we celebrate World Kiswahili Language Day. Swahili is one of the most widely spoken languages of the African linguistic family and the most commonly used language in sub-Saharan Africa. It ranks among the top-ten most spoken languages in the world. 

After four days of exchanging knowledge, networking, and gathering new ideas at the European Conference on African Studies (ECAS, 25-28 June), the ASCL delegation left Prague more than inspired. ECAS 2025 engaged with 'African, Afropolitan and Afropean forms of belonging and positioning'.

In this book, John Kegel places the final phase of the four-year civil war that formed the immediate context of the Rwandan Genocide, at the heart of the narrative. Kegel contends that it forms the bedrock of a real understanding of Rwanda between 1990 and 1994, and beyond.

On 20 June 1990, the Senegalese writer Mohamed Mbougar Sarr was born in Dakar, Senegal. Sarr is the author of four novels as well as a number of award-winning short stories. He won the 2021 Prix Goncourt for his novel The Most Secret Memory of Men, becoming the first Sub-Saharan African to do so.

Leiden's Chibuike Uche and Irma Mosquera Valderrama (Law), and three international colleagues have started developing a protocol for the operations of MNCs in conflict areas (the LEIDEN Protocol). The first draft will be presented during a seminar on 8 July.

Submit your Africa-related master’s thesis for the Africa Thesis Award 2025, have it published and win €500! The Africa Thesis Award is an annual initiative by the African Studies Centre Leiden that recognises outstanding master’s theses on African topics.

On 28 May 2025 African literary giant Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o passed away at the age of 87. ASCL senior researcher Annachiara Raia wrote a tribute in his honour, highlighting his fight as, in his own words, 'a language warrior' for African-language literatures.