Tim’s Kit List This August, Tim-Fred Jatto, a refugee from Nigeria who is now resident in the UK, will be setting off from Land’s End to ride the 1,071 miles to John O’Groats. Along with his co-riders, Andy Morgan and Phil Lane, Tim is hoping to raise £10,000 for Bristol Refugee Rights, an organisation that…
Category: Writing
All written work except blogs
Translation: Que Vola? artist biog
If there’s a joy in translating artist biographies, which despite their mundane commercial purpose are often well considered and well written, it’s discovering something new and enticing. The No Format! label is a dependable source for such discoveries. I’m not a big connoisseur of Cuban music, but it’s always a boon to hear something young…
Translation: ‘The Wise Landscape of the Face’ by Michel Onfray
The French writer and philosopher Michel Onfray wrote this essay as an introduction to a photobook called Correspondances, featuring images of Mont-Saint-Michel and its surroundings by photographer Richard Volante. The book emerged from a residency that Volante undertook in and around the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, during which he met local residents and found out about…
Translation: ‘Simonobisick’s Letter’ by Blick Bassy
Simonobisick is a character from Blick Bassy’s remarkable novel Le Moabi Cinema. He spends his time hanging out with his mates in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon in West Africa. None of them have jobs, or much in the way of prospects. They sit around drinking large amounts of beer, dreaming of wealth, of bagging a…
Translation: ‘Algiers’ by Denis Péan
Some years ago, I was asked to translate the lyrics to Cinema El Mundo, one of my favourite albums by Lo’Jo. I felt blessed in several ways; by the chance to work with Lo’Jo, a band I love; by the opportunity to translate the words of Lo’Jo’s lead singer Denis Péan, a true poet if…
PLAZA FRANCIA: Tango’s long distance love affair
With The Gotan Project, Christoph Müller and Eduardo Makaroff turned tango on its head. Now they’re doing it again, with the Plaza Francia Orchestra
Zanzibar – Behind the veil
It’s embarrassing to admit how easily the exotic pull of these islands hacks into your main frame and takes control of your cognitive faculties and critical discernment. Fact is, to a pasty-faced subject just off the plane from some wintry destination in the northern hemisphere, Zanzibar is, on first appearances, irresistibly exotic. No argument. Exotic and graceful and slow and warm and easy…Falling in love at first sight with it all takes no great effort. But there’s a nagging part of you that knows that this pretty, sunny face is a deception, and that behind it must lie a very human mess of light and shade. Seeking it out feels almost perverse.
An extract from my book Blick Bassy ‘1958’
In this, the opening passage from my book Blick Bassy – 1958, I imagine the nocturnal reveries of Ruben Um Nyobè, the revolutionary leader of pre-independence Cameroun who was gunned down by the French army in September 1958
TARAGALTE FESTIVAL – Dreaming of a better Sahara
Three generations of poets guitarists sing of their hopes for the Sahara at the Taragalte Festival 2016 in Morocco
After Gao: how important are mixed patrols to Mali’s future?
With the world’s media riveted to events in Washington, the West African nation of Mali might be forgiven for feeling a little abandoned in one of its darkest hours since independence. Last Tuesday January 17th at 9am a young jihadist by the name of Abdel Hadi al Foulani drove a pickup truck into a military…
