The written word lies at the heart of the Swahili culture. And the poem – locally known as mashahiri - is the paramount aesthetic expression in which celebrated local savants excel.

Ahead of Saturday's crucial talks between Iran and the P5 + 1 countries, Stefan Simanowitz intercepts a letter from George W. Bush to President Obama.

Shauna and her colleague Simon, who is quite the ladies' man, are on a mission to dissect an energy sector initiative that binds the national electricity utility and a private company together in a murky concession agreement. Some remote areas of the KwaZulu-Natal province are laden with inadequate electricity services and underdevelopment in a backdrop of partnerships among "parties that have no communication whatsoever", and Shauna wants to get to the bottom of it. Following a number of spats, one of which makes Shauna feel like a "prize idiot", the two colleagues evoke the philosophies of Ubuntu.

The publication that I pulled from the bookshelf is almost fifty years old. On its pristine cover is a photograph of African heads of states who founded the OAU...