Book Reviews
The psychological toll of being constantly tracked and harassed
The Spectator – 30 Jan 2025
Never underestimate the complexities of African history
The Spectator – 23 Jan 2025
The fresh, forceful voice of Frantz Fanon
The Spectator – 9 Mar 2024
When America helped assassinate an African Leader
The Atlantic – 23 Oct 2023
Why were 80,000 Asians suddenly expelled from Uganda in 1972?
The Spectator – 26 Aug 2023
Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage by Jonny Steinberg review — Winnie the thug, Nelson the philanderer
The Times – 12 May 2023
The butcher of Chad who died in a private Senegalese clinic
The Spectator – 17 Dec 2022
Reminder: ‘Africa Is Not a Country’ Dipo Faloyin is tired of Western stereotypes.
NYTimes.com – 31 Aug 2022
A Memoir of Post-Genocide Refugee Life Rendered With Delicacy and Insight
NYTimes.com – 12 Oct 2021
The Four Horsemen by Emily Mayhew review — reining in War, Pestilence, Famine and Death
TheTimes.co.uk – 8 May 2021
Idi Amin: The Story of Africa’s Icon of Evil by Mark Leopold review — more Trump than Pol Pot
TheTimes.co.uk – 13 Nov 2020
Museveni’s new vision turns sour: A review of ‘Combatants’
AfricanArguments.org – 03 Jul 2019
A Fallen Angel of Mercy – Did her good works expiate the sins of her dark past?
TheAmericanScholar.org – 05 Mar 2017
A century of Ethiopia’s turbulent history, seen through the life of one woman
The Spectator – 17 Feb 2017
The Wanderer: How a Victorian novelist’s life and times inform our own
TheAmericanScholar.org – 04 Dec 2017
Ngugi wa Thiong’o on Starting Out as a Writer
New York Times – 13 Oct 2016
The King of Kings and I: Haile Selassie, by his great nephew
The Spectator – 30 Oct 2015
A murder mystery in Zimbabwe: a novel about the intersecting of five troubled marriages in a morally bankrupt police state
The Spectator – 8 Aug 2015
Rumpole Series by John Mortimer, book of a lifetime: Grandeur and grotesquery, seen through the eyes of a secret iconoclast
The Independent – 30 July 2015
Tom Burgis’s “The Looting Machine”
New York Times – 20 March 2015
Jonny Steinberg’s “A Man of Good Hope”
Spectator – 24 January 2015
David Van Reybrouck’s “Congo: The Epic History of a People
Spectator – 29 March 2014
Mark Gevisser’s “Dispatcher: Lost and Found in Johannesburg”
Spectator – 15 February 2014
Rian Malan’s “The Lion Sleeps Tonight and Other Stories of Africa
Spectator – 09 February 2013
Artur Domoslawski’s “Ryszard Kapuscinski: A Life”
Spectator – 29 September 2012
John Dramani Mahama’s “My First Coup d’Etat, And Other True Stories from the Lost Decades in Africa
Spectator – 01 September 2012
Noo Saro-Wiwa’s “Looking for Transwonderland
Spectator – 3 December 2011
Susan Williams’ “Who Killed Hammarskjöld?
Spectator – 29 October 2011
Sally H. Jacobs’ “The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father”
Spectator – 9 July 2011
Jason K. Stearns’ “Dancing in the Glory of Monsters”
Spectator – 7 May 2011
Aminatta Forna’s “The Memory of Love”
Spectator – 5 May 2010
Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s “Dreams in a Time of War”
Spectator – 24 March 2010
Chinua Achebe’s “The Education of a British-protected Child”
Spectator – 13 January, 2010
Serge Michel and Michel Beuret’s “China Safari”
Washington Post – 16 August 2009
Jane Bussmann’s “The Worst Date Ever”
Spectator – 15 July, 2009
Dambisa Moyo’s “Dead Aid”
Spectator – 11 Feb 2009
Lawrence Devlin’s “Chief of Station, Cong”
Financial Times – 22 March 2007
Wangari Maathai’s “Unbowed. One Woman’s Story”
Financial Times – 23 February 2007