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Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment

Editor Carole Boyce Davies

Publication Date: July 2011
ISBN: 978-0-9562401-6-3
Price: £16.99

Claudia Jones was a smart, politically-wise, brilliant, transnational feminist, Pan Africanist theorist and cultural activist who brought together in her speeches and writings the politics that is now seen as a necessary way of intersecting a variety of political fields and positions. Known as the founder of the first London carnival and the editor of the first black newspaper the West Indian Gazette in England, Claudia Jones’s activism bridged US and the UK with the black world politics of decolonization that ushered in contemporary community empowerment. For the first time, in one place, Claudia Jones Beyond Containment… brings together her essays, poetry, autobiographical and longer writings, expanding our knowledge of several fields. Providing us with the clarity of the ideas of a black woman activist-intellectual of her period, for a fuller understanding of Caribbean, African American and thelarger African Diaspora discourses. Claudia Jones Beyond Containment is essential reading.

Important Endorsements for Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment

'Claudia Jones is one of my personal heroines. I spent my formative political years in Claudia Jones’s London stamping ground of Notting Hill – it was the classic centre of post-war black activism in Britain. Most West Indian immigrants in the 1950s came by boat to Southampton and the train from there took them into Paddington. Hence the large black community in that part of West London. So I know people who had worked with Claudia Jones and spoke of her with awe. She founded two of Black Britain’s most important institutions; the first black newspaper, the West Indian Gazette and she was also one of the founding organizers of the Notting Hill Carnival.

The ‘hidden history’ of women’s contribution to progressive politics has been concealed for too long. This important book is part of the process of putting that right. Claudia Jones was an iconic figure who inspired a generation of black activists and deserves to be much more widely known. This book is a fitting memorial.'
Diane Abbott, MP, Westminster, London.

'Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment transcends the silencing and erasure historically accorded women of achievement: it makes accessible and brings to wider attention the words of an often overlooked twentieth-century political and cultural activist, who tirelessly campaigned, wrote, spoke out, organized, edited and published autobiographical writings, poetry, essays on subjects close to her political heart – human rights, peace, struggle related to gender, race and class – this is a collection that unites the many facets of a woman whose identities as a radical thinker and as a black woman are not in conflict.

Carole Boyce Davies, author of the acclaimed Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones (2008), continues the task of ensuring that Claudia Jones takes her rightful place in the exalted list of twentieth-century Caribbean intellectuals in the Diaspora, including her compatriots George Padmore and C.L.R. James, who engaged with the world to make it a more enlightened place and whose legacy still deserves to resonate.'
Margaret Busby, OBE, Writer, Broadcaster and Journalist, London.

'Carole Boyce Davies’s brilliant book, Left of Karl Marx, did so much more than recover the life and legacy of Claudia Jones. She threw down the gauntlet, forcing us to rethink many of the fundamental assumptions and conceits of Marxism and to come to terms with Claudia Jones’s radical critiques of racism, women’s oppression and colonial rule. But Davies isn’t done. In this stunning collection of Jones’s essays, speeches, autobiographical reflections and poems, Davies not only underscores why Jones stands among the world’s most important radical theorists and organizers of the 20th century, but she reveals the Trinidadian-born, transnational intellectual as artist and visionary.'
Robin D. G. Kelly, Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern Carolina and author of Freedom Dreams: The Back Radical Imagination.

'Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment lifts veils of ignorance and erasure that obscure a brilliant, 20th century human rights advocate. With this Collection of Jones’s writings, Carole Boyce Davies provides the 21st century with an important opportunity to revisit our collective histories and current struggles shaped by feminist, anti-racist, communist Claudia Jones, a Caribbean-born activist and intellectual who influenced international struggles of blacks, women and workers for social justice.'
Joy James, Williams College, USA and author of Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics.

'In Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment, Carole Boyce Davies has uncovered a super-excellent collection.... commendable not only for their breadth-of-scope but largely also for their intellectual sharpness and acuity.... while all based on past events these writings are so very directly relevant today, especially in the manner in which they assist our understanding of contemporary world politics with the US and the Anglo-American bloc playing a leading role. Indeed, Jones’s interventions are as deep and relevant as to provide a direct prognosis of contemporary US imperialism in the era of globalization. There can be absolutely no doubt that Jones was an activist and an ideologue, who used and tirelessly mobilized her identity as a member of the Young Communist League and other organizations to help in the fight to establish a new, more just, equitable and humanitarian social order.'
Dr Kwadwo Osei-Nyame Jnr., Lecturer in African Studies, School of Oriental & African Studies, (SOAS), University of London.

And Crocodiles Are Hungry At Night

A chronicle of a poet's imprisonment under life president Banda of Malawi

Publication Date: July 2011
ISBN: 978-0-9562401-7-0
Price: £12.99

This book is a powerful contribution to the genre of the prison memoir in Africa. Jack Mapanje presents a moving account of a poet’s imprisonment by the state, his struggle to probe the hidden motives for his arrest, his attempt to provide an unforgettable record of the architecture of imprisonment and the perpetual struggle between the forces of truth and those of naked power. In 1981, Jack Mapanje was a budding poet and scholar in Malawi. His first collection of poetry, Of Chameleons and Gods had just been published in the prestigious Heinemann African Writers Series and his scholarly work in linguistics was also transforming language and literary studies in Central Africa—his work was drawing international attention. But two years later the state ordered the withdrawal of Mapanje’s poetry from all schools, institutions of higher learning and bookstores. In 1987, Mapanje was arrested by the Malawian secret police and imprisoned without charge until 1991. This book is a recollection of those years in prison. Written in the tradition of the African prison memoir and often echoing the works of other famous prison graduates such as Wole Soyinka (The Man Died) and Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Detained), the memoir presents Mapanje’s retrospective attempt to explain the cause and terms of his imprisonment, to recall in tranquillity the terror of arrest, the process of incarceration and the daily struggle to hold on to some measure of sanity and spiritual freedom.The book will appeal to scholars of African history, politics and literature. It has the potential to become a major text in the emerging field of human rights studies. International PEN events are being organized around its publication.

• Given the singularity of Jack Mapanje’s experiences in prison and the uniqueness of his voice, this book will not be competing with others.

• It will be favourably compared to the canonical memoirs in its field (works by Ngugi and Soyinka) and will invoke memories of South African poets in prison in the 1960s (Arthur Nortje and Dennis Brutus) and Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in the 1990s (A Month And A Day & Letters, Ayebia Clarke Publishing 2005).

About the Author

Jack Mapanje, a Malawian poet, linguist, editor and human rights activist, was formerly head of the English department, University of Malawi, where he was imprisoned on 25 September 1987 by the dictator Hastings Kamuzu Banda of Malawi for three years, seven months, sixteen days and more than twelve hours for his dissenting views and radical poetry. Upon his release on 10 May 1991 he went into exile with his family in the UK. He has published five books of poetry, edited one anthology of African prison writing and co-edited two anthologies of African oral and written poetry and an African writers’ handbook.

For his academic achievement, contribution to poetry and human rights he is a recipient of the 1988 Rotterdam Poetry International Award, honorary doctor of the University of Stirling, the 2002 African Literature Association (USA) Fonlon-Nichols Award and Fellow of University College London.

Mapanje was a visiting scholar at the University of York; taught literature and creative writing in the School of English, Leeds University and the School of English, Newcastle University; he has held research and writers’ residencies at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands; University College Cork, the Republic of Ireland; St Anthony’s College, Oxford University; The Open University, Milton Keynes; Warwick University, Coventry; and Dove Cottage, The Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere, Cumbria. He is currently visiting professor in the faculty of arts, York St John University.


Important endorsements for Jack Mapanje’s Memoir: And Crocodiles are Hungry at Night – With a Foreword by Paul Tiyambe Zeleza

'Jack Mapanje’s memoir not only chronicles his imprisonment, it also sets out how the life of a young poet and academic is viciously destroyed by the absence of academic freedom. Brilliantly crafted, with a touch of humour even in grim circumstances, this is a moving contribution to the growing world literature of incarceration. As such it has universal appeal.'
Lady Antonia Fraser DBE, Vice-President (former President) English PEN

'Jack Mapanje’s imprisonment without trial or charge was the subject of protests by linguists, writers, academics, human rights organizations and lovers of freedom throughout the world. Apart from being an ordinary prison memoir, the writer offers us a rare glimpse on how inner circles operate in repressive regimes, in order to protect themselves and the despots they serve. This work is crafted with passion, cheek and wry humour. But it is a necessary warning to future African and world leaders to care about the people who vote them into power. It is also a testimony to the efforts of those who fight for prisoners of conscience throughout the world. A long-awaited and welcome contribution to the growing world literature of political incarceration.'
Noam Chomsky, Emeritus Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.

‘How compellingly Jack Mapanje demonstrates his right to freedom of expression! His beautifully written book is a forceful indictment of corrupt governments and their capacity to wreck lives and whole societies. It is also a moving tribute to the power of collective campaigning and letter-writing which can - literally in Mapanje’s case - save lives.’
Kate Allen, Director, Amnesty International UK.

'And Crocodiles are Hungry at Night is a powerful contribution to the genre of the prison memoir in Africa. Jack Mapanje presents the moving account of a poet’s imprisonment by the state, his struggle to probe the hidden motives for this arrest and his attempt to provide an unforgettable record of the architecture of imprisonment and the perpetual struggle between the forces of truth and those of naked power. In 1981, Jack Mapanje was a budding poet and scholar in Malawi. His first collection of poetry, Of Chameleons and Gods had just been published in the prestigious Heinemann African Writers Series and his scholarly work in linguistics was also transforming language and literary studies in Central Africa—his work was drawing international attention. But two years later the state ordered the withdrawal of Mapanje’s poetry from all schools, institutions of higher learning and bookstores. In 1987, Mapanje was arrested by the Malawian secret police and imprisoned without charge until 1991. This book is a recollection of those years in prison. Written in the tradition of the African prison memoir and often echoing the works of other famous prison graduates such as the Noble Laureate Wole Soyinka’s The Man Died and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Detained, the memoir chronicles Mapanje’s retrospective attempt to explain the cause and terms of his imprisonment, to recall in tranquility the terror of arrest, the process of incarceration and the daily struggle to hold on to some measure of sanity and spiritual freedom.'
Dr Simon Gikandi, Robert Schirmer Professor of English, Princeton University, USA.

'Mapanje’s memoir powerfully recounts the human will to survival as well as the capacity to confound even the most repressive and highly organized regime of surveillance and offers an important historical resource of Postcolonial Malawi. It has the intensity of Soyinka’s The Man Died, the moral and political purpose of Ngũgĩ’s Detained and the anguished, but immensely hopeful tone of Vera Chirwa’s, Fearless Fighter.'
Dr Mpalive-Hangson Msiska, Reader in English and Humanities, Birkbeck, University of London.

The Place We Call Home

 

Author Kofi Anyidoho

ISBN: 978-0-9562401-8-7
Price: £10.99

Anyidoho says the title of this collection – The Place We Call Home - first came to him more than a decade ago as a collage of fragmented voices and memories he was to carry with him as he travelled the world, always knowing that there was one place on this earth he could claim to be his own, a place of psychic anchor in a haunted turbulent world. This collection features poems written to document important world events including Countdown to GroundZero born out of 9/11 and its tragic aftermath, the Preface records the writer’s touching anecdote of how he arrived in the US as a writer-in-residence at the end of August 2001 and even visited the World Trade Centre and surrounding area with his daughter three days before the Twin Towers came down in that fateful and tragic firestorm. This collection of poems is a lamentation and celebration documenting important and epic events in world history including the 200^th Anniversary celebration of the Abolition of Slavery in 2007. Anyidoho says, ‘it is the burden and curse of the poet to sing the loss of all our crops after the raging fire has burned the bush and all the harvest into ash.’

• Anyidoho is a respected poet, academic and children’s story-writer whose poetry is now accompanied by music because he feels the printed word ‘can no longer carry the full burden of my voice.’

• Anyidoho’s work as a teacher and storyteller combine to make him one of the most sought-after scholars in academic circles in African literary and social science circles internationally. He currently sits on several academic boards including first occupant of the Kwame Nkrumah Chair of African Studies at the University of Ghana and an executive committee member of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA).

About the Author

Kofi Anyidoho is a well-regarded Ghanaian poet, academic and critic who comes from a family tradition of Ewe poets and oral griots. He is a Professor of Literature at the University of Ghana, Legon, where he has also served as Director of the CODESRIA African Humanities Institute Programme, Acting Director of the School of Performing Arts and Head of the English Department. He has received numerous awards for his poetry, including the Valco Fund Literary Award, the Langston Hughes Prize, the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award, the Fania Kruger Fellowship for Poetry of Social Vision, Poet of the Year (Ghana) and the Ghana Book Award. He has published five collections of poetry, a children’s play in Ewe and English and CD & cassette recordings of his poetry in Ewe. His published poetry includes Elegy for the Revolution (1978), A Harvest of Our Dreams (1985), Earthchild (1985), Ancestral Logic and Caribbean Blues (1992), PraiseSong for TheLand (2002). He is a member of CODESRIA’s Executive Committee and was installed as the first occupant of the Kwame Nkrumah Chair in African Studies at the University of Ghana on March 18, 2010.

Important Endorsements for The Place We Call Home & Other Poems
‘What is home if not that “little corner of earth” where the poet listens to the “heartbeat of a troubled century”? ... In this remarkable body of poems, place crosses path with time; the present is a delicate diaphragm between the past and the future. From Africa to Asia, from the thrasonical West to the embattled East, the poet conjures up images and events which the past needs to reshape the future. At the heart of these poems is a consistent Humanist project: the primacy of memory and remembrance; the urgent need for equity in the dealings between peoples and nations, the recurring stupidity of war, the ultimate possibility of love and laughter….. Anyidoho’s inimitable voice throbs through these poems, resonant, lyrical, hauntingly engaging. The Place We Call Home is the voiceprint of a poet who has played no small role in shaping the theme, tone and tenor of contemporary African poetry.’
Niyi Osundare, Distinguished Professor of English, University of New Orleans, USA.

‘The Place We Call Home combines ancestral voices of lament, prophecy and jubilation with the crafst-manship of the best contemporary African poetry. While this is no surprise to most of us, because Kofi Anyidoho is one of the best poets of our time, The Place We Call Home should also be celebrated for the rhythm of the poetic language and the use of words that conjure up home and continue to haunt us for days.’
Manthia Diawara, Professor of Comparative Literature, Africana Studies and Director of Institute of Afro-American Affairs and Africana Studies Programme, New York University, USA.

‘Anyidoho’s mellow verse grips us once again with the unresolved dilemmas of the African experience however it rings with the celebration of lives well lived.’
Esi Sutherland-Addy, Senior Research Fellow, Head of Language, Literature and Drama, Institute of African Studies and Associate Director of African Humanities Institute Programme, University of Ghana.

‘With uncanny insight, an acute ear for tone and rhythm and a feeling for myth as well as meaning, singer-poet Kofi Anyidoho once again holds up an ancestral mirror to our day-to-day lives. This three-movement symphony, The Place We Call Home, ranges over the African past and the shifting configurations of our global present, and takes a peek into our futures. About slavery and terrorism, local and global politics, women, kinship, friendship, and our very identities, Anyidoho has something fresh and unexpected to say. He challenges, titillates and moves his readers by means of subtle portraits of the ironies and joys of our (African) lives. The Place We Call Home will be savoured by all for whom the reflective life is (still) the only kind worth living.’
Kofi Agawu, FGA, FBA, Professor of Music, Princeton University, USA.

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Ayebia would like to acknowledge
the help of the Arts Council Funding.