Books published by James Currey

In-depth account of the Marikana massacre, based on the voices of the miners and their families themselves, from the build up to the strike to attempts to hold the state to account and its lasting significance. Jacana: Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana).

Important and broadening study of the way Africans engaged with missions, not as beneficiaries of humanitarian philanthropy, but as workers.

Offers new insights into the struggle against Apartheid, and the poverty and inequality that instigated political resistance.

The first book-length study on the relationship between African literature and new media.

First scholarly treatment of Uganda's first elected ruler; offers new insights into the religious and political history of modern Uganda.

Cutting-edge research in the study of Islamic scholarship and its impact on the religious, political, economic and cultural history of Africa; bridges the "europhone"/"non-europhone" knowledge divides to significantly advance decolonial thinking, and extend the frontiers of social science research in Africa.

A significant contribution to the history of humanitarianism, Christianity and the politics of aid in Africa.

Finalist for the African Studies Association's 2021 Best Book Prize. Explores the limits of law in changing unequal land relations in Kenya.

Alongside the impact of his early novels and plays, and his more recent memoirs, these essays give new insights into Ngugi's and other writers' responses to colonialism - there is new material here for students of literature, politics and culture.

A deeply felt and engaging personal account of Zimbabwe's political awakening by one of its best-known historians.

A close analysis of Farah's novels is used to track the contradictions implicit in the notion of the modern, disengaged self and how transformations of the novel in literary history attempt to negotiate this founding contradiction.

Examines the commodification of land rights and the effect of international licences for resource extraction on the pastoral communities of Sudan.

Examines the variety of mostly unorganized and informal ways in which Africans exercise agency and resist state power in the 21st century, through citizen action and popular culture, and how the relationship between ruler and ruled is being reframed.

An overview of the Swahili novel, its place in a globalized world and a reflection on the status and dynamism of Kafka's concept of 'minor literature'.

Africa is a 'theme park' for Western tourists to experience untouched wilderness, untamed nature, and truly 'authentic' cultures, where the hosts, too, are part of a discourse about the 'other' and ourselves, about wildness, danger and roots.

Gives an ethnographic account of the complexities of the use of photography in Africa, both historically and in contemporary practice.

In the context of increasing privatization and land reform these case studies reveal how reforms impact on women's rights to land and how these rights are contested or upheld.

First comprehensive account of the origins and early history of the Chewa as revealed by oral tradition and archaeology that allows a more accurate picture of a pre-literate society

Examines the new challenges facing Africa's pastoral drylands from large-scale investments and how this might affect the economic and political landscape for the regions affected and their peoples.

A detailed examination of African war veterans that reveals the changes they wrought on postwar transition and society.

A vivid portrayal of Kivebulaya's life that interrogates the role of indigenous agents as harbingers of change under colonization, and the influence of emerging polities in the practice of Christian faiths.

A timely analysis that provides a pre-history to current debates on decolonisation, the politics of the moving image, and artistic engagements with anti-colonial archives.

Winner of the 2020 ALA Book of the Year Award - ScholarshipExamines the ways in which space and spatial structures have been constituted, contested and re-imagined in Francophone and Anglophone West African literature since the early 1950s.

Finalist for the 2019 Albert J. Raboteau Prize for Best Book in Africana Religions An innovative study of Christianity and society in Cameroon that illuminates the history of faith and cultural transformation among societies living under French rule 1914 to 1939.