Sympathy for the devil (Prospect)
Heidi Holland's biography of Robert Mugabe does something deeply unsettling - it makes one feel the dictator's pain.
Africa’s moderate extremist (Prospect)
Thabo Mbeki the enigma has become a cliché. But so far there have been few attempts to fathom the man who in 1999 was given the impossible task of replacing Nelson Mandela.
Has Mugabe won? (Prospect)
The speech reworked familiar themes of a degenerate and imperialist west trying to force its values on Africa. "Perhaps a new kind of devil found in Britain is spreading… The devilish system in which a man marries another man makes them disregard nature…This is a rotten culture."
Letter from Harare (Prospect)
It has been raining for two weeks in Harare, with only an occasional respite for the city's graceful avenues to drip dry. For a country that has gone without heavy rain for several years, this is a turnaround.