After the launch of his latest book, Professor Adekeye Adebajo, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria (UP), said that he hopes the book will provide South African audiences specifically with insights into African economics and politics and the role South Africa plays in Southern Africa’s broader economy.
The book, The Splendid Tapestry of African Life: Essays on a Resilient Continent, its Diaspora, and the World, was launched on Tuesday, 25 March 2025, at the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at UP’s Hatfield Campus.
The Splendid Tapestry of African Life is a continuation of Prof Adebajo’s previous book, Global Africa, and contains a collection of 145 of his essays written over the past three decades. “They reflect my thinking about African politics, African international relations, and the world in general,” he says. “The book also examines the changing geostrategic dynamics between the US and China.”
His latest work is divided into 10 sections that examine multiple topics ranging from politics and economics in Africa to African sport and culture. He says it is aimed at multiple audiences. “I wouldn’t say that there is one particular part that people should look at more than others. Different audiences and readers will have different interests regarding which sections they will delve more into.”
Prof Adebajo adds that he “would like people to read these essays and primarily learn about Africa and its diaspora in the Caribbean, America and Europe, because that is the story that the book is telling, about the Black Atlantic and the legacies of slavery and imperialism.”
More about Prof Adekeye Adebajo
Prior to his role at UP’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, Prof Adebajo was the director of the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation at the University of Johannesburg and was executive director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution at the University of Cape Town. He served on United Nations missions in South Africa, Western Sahara and Iraq, and was director of the Africa Programme at the International Peace Institute in New York.
He is the author of ten books, including Building Peace in West Africa, UN Peacekeeping in Africa, and Boutros Boutros-Ghali: Afro-Arab Prophet, Pharaoh, and Pope. He is co-editor or editor of 11 books on Africa’s international relations, including From Global Apartheid to Global Village: Africa and the United Nations. A graduate of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts, US, he obtained his doctorate from Oxford University in England.
The golden thread
Over the past three decades, Prof Adebajo’s writings have proven to be extensively transdisciplinary, with roots in sociology, politics, economics, law, and culture and sport. The 10 sections of his new book range from serious topics such as pan-African struggles and Germany’s genocide in Namibia to lighter topics such as African film and African football. The figurative golden thread that ties the essays together is “the colonial slave trade legacy that created the Black Atlantic diaspora in Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe”.
Prof Adebajo’s essays also examine other aspects of African life, including the misrepresentation of Africans and the story of Africa in Western contexts such as Hollywood. “These films are reinforcing the image that the West has about Africa as a primitive continent full of disease and war,” he says. “There isn’t really a positive side that’s often been shown about Africa [in Hollywood].” He cites Nollywood films as more successful in delivering accurate narratives about Africa, its people and its cultures.
He hopes to reach readers who are ready for new and more accurate reflections on African life. “I would like readers to be educated and entertained in some way by the book – people who like punchy and provocative writing that takes a stance and debates various people.”
