La saison des pluies

Africa has an important place in the world. Yet the most common images in the Western mind are still those of poverty, famine and violent conflict. But while these problems are real, it does not mean that Africa is just that. Stephen Ellis shows in his book that it is necessary to rethink Africa's place in time, if we are to understand it in all its complexity and to consider its trajectory in a careful reading of the current state of affairs, as the poem by Simon Mpondo from which the book takes its title invites us to do:

When the rains come, causing the corn to bloom, the swallow to migrate, and the spider to weave its web, the signs people read in these movements are always ambiguous. Ultimately, the omens offered by nature at the beginning of the rainy season are uncertain and tell us more about the season that has just passed than about the one to come.