News & Events

On 23 November 1948, South African-Scottish author and academic  Zoë Wicomb was born near Vanrhynsdorp, Western Cape, in South Africa. In 2013, she was awarded the inaugural Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for her fiction.

On 15 November 1996, Ugandan climate justice activist Vanessa Nakate was born in Kampala. She became a celebrity in December 2018 after becoming concerned about the unusually high temperatures in her country.

The collection of the African Studies Centre Leiden Library currently holds nearly 60 cookbooks, half of which are produced in Africa. The cookbooks published in Africa are often oriented at one specific country; those from outside often present recipes from all over the continent. 

This book, co-edited by Rijk van Dijk, explores local cultural discourses and practices relating to experiences of the demonic, the spectral and the uncanny, probing into their effects on people’s domestic and intimate spheres of life. It contains case studies from sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Europe.