Baobab

is a South African journal of new writing. Mai Palmberg lent me the launch issue (Autumn 2008) this weekend.

Friends tumbled out of the pages. Balm to the moments of loneliness that sprinkled my first weekend in Sweden.

The cover photo of Gabeba Baderoon is by Victor Dlamini, who featured me and Migritude on his Victor Dlamini podcast. Gabeba was the second African Guest Writer here at the Nordic Africa Institute, following the grande dame of African literature, Ama Ata Aidoo. I'll meet Gabeba in person next week at the African Literature Association Conference in Vermont, where we'll read together at a memorial evening to Aimé Césaire.

Then there's a short story by Mbulelo Mzamane, who largeness of spirit and intellect filled me with warmth and inspiration at Time of The Writer last year. And an essay by Andile Mngxitama, who called for a discourse of justice from me and other Kenyan writers during the post-election violence.

Reading Baobab, I wasn't lonely anymore. It restored me to the comfort and gratitude of knowing that I am connected - to a continent, to a vision of global justice, to an international community of writers, artists, thinkers, scholars who share that vision, and whose work feeds mine.