African Diaspora

In our series of letters from African journalists, Maher Mezahi writes about what looking for the branches of his family tree has taught him. On the outskirts of Skikda, an agreeable Mediterranean city along Algeria's eastern seaboard,…

From sleeping rough in Paris to being cast as a slave three times in five years, the Shazam! star is no stranger to hardship. Will Hollywood finally give him the great roles he so clearly deserves? The extraordinary story of Djimon…

The tutor on my exercise science course pointed me towards literature, and I began to read voraciously. It was the start of a love affair that led to my first novel. Mid-2012, I was trying to read a book on the physiological and…

I wrote the first draft in a ghetto in Lagos, working on it at 4am. With its publication the life I was meant to live began. Family legend has it that I began reading the Times at around the age of four. At school in London I was that…

‘I relished how familiar it all felt’ … Eric Otieno Sumba. Photograph: Supplied image

His death last year at 41 left a chasm in the industry. In a new BBC documentary, director Cassie Quarless explores the legacy of one of the most important – and controversial – designers of the 21st century ‘There is a whole generation…

Compassion and empathy really lacked for me in that environment (boarding school), and so to have someone that said to me: "Don't worry about school. It is not about the grades, focus on your health." That was the first time I felt heard…

Michaela Coel doesn’t like to sit still; she’s a self-​described mover, the type to run a half-​marathon in the middle of the night for fun. So I’m not all that surprised when the 35-year-old actor-writer-​director suggests meeting for a…

Viola Davis is tired. I know because she has told me – “Let me just be honest, I’m tired,” she says at one point, with all the heartfelt emphasis of those Academy Award-winning eyes – but I also know because I’ve seen her latest film, and…

"For us here in Tanzania, it would have been the end of the world." The father of Tanzania's first Olympic swimmer is talking to his daughter, confessing in truth, as he tries to explain why he hid a condition that killed at least five…