TRANSAFRICA, the languages of postqueerness

234pp., illus., paperback, ZED Books, London, 2025

ISBN: 9781350400764

A collection of essays that explore the new vocabularies queer and transgender Africans have used in the 21st century to refer to themselves - in novels, poetry, testimonies/life stories, interviews, film and visual art, whether in English, French, Arabic and other selected African languages - and the meanings they have conferred upon “queer” and “transgender".

Contributions include:

"'Dare Speak Their Name': The Poetry of Logan February" by Chris Dunton

"Translects: Post-Queering Transgender in South African and Nigerian Autofictions" by Chantal Zabus

"The Eco-Queer Tree of South African Constitutionalism" by Francois Lion-Cachet

"Transafrica: Joan Hambidge to Chantal Zabus " by Joan Hambidge

"1995, Reading the Signs of the Time" by Philippe-Joseph Salazar

"After Queer, After Decriminalization: Botswana, John McAllister and Katlego K. Kolanyane-Kesupile in Conversation".

"Pioneers of the study of literary representations of same-sex desire in Africa, Dunton and Zabus have brought together an always fascinating and sometimes fun collection of essays focused primarily on lexical cultures around the continent. From critical assessments of the proliferation of queer(ish) characters in literature, film and poetry by African creators, to close case studies of the cultural production of meanings, this is a wide-ranging and powerful intervention. And dire as the sexual rights situation may sometimes seem in much of Africa and indeed around this currently oft-demented world, the gist of the book and the works it considers is positive, verging on optimistic." Marc Epprecht, Queen's University, Canada

"This original and agenda-setting anthology, assembled by two leading scholars of the literary and cultural representations of gender identity and sexual orientation in and of the African continent, showcases new and established voices in the field. While no single anthology could be exhaustive, this one provides fresh insights into what's happening now and charts new courses for the future." Neville Hoad, University of Texas at Austin, USA 

Chantal Zabus is Professor of Postcolonial and Gender Studies at the University Sorbonne Paris Nord, France. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Postcolonial Text.

Chris Dunton has worked at universities in Nigeria, Libya and South Africa, and was most recently Professor and Dean of Humanities at the National University of Lesotho.