French author Marie NDiaye is a finalist for the 2013 International Booker Prize

Marie NDiaye par Nicolas Hidiroglou, Paris

Author Marie NDiaye, who is the first black woman to win France's Prix Goncourt, has been named a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize. She is nominated alongside such international superstars as Lydia Davis, Marilynne Robinson, and Peter Stamm, as well as past winners like Philip Roth, Alice Munro, and Chinua Achebe.

Video: Black European music (men) - Black History Month special

Last week for Black History Month, the chart-topping Afro-European female singers. This week the male singers who have made their mark nationally and sometimes internationally. Eddy Grant from the UK with Electric Avenue  of 1983 is the first in the compilation.

REPORT: Black Portraiture[s]: The Black body in the west (Paris)

Photo by Terrence Jennings

 A month ago the highly anticipated conference Black Portraiture[s]: The Black body in the west was held in Paris, France on 17–20 January 2013.  "A conference for the history books," wrote Michelle Joan Wilkinson in ARC Magazine.

NEW: TRANSITION 110 - Black poetry and more

Fais Do-Do -Spring 2013: We are thrilled to feature a suite of Black poetry in this issue of Transition, along with photographers, artists, architects, and writers who catalogue the textures and colors of Africa and the African American experience.

History imprints itself upon the poetry and art featured in Transition 110 and also the prose: Diane McWhorter returns to Birmingham, Alabama and finds that the virulent politics of discrimination continues to flare in the streets of Birmingham-not only in the black community but also among immigrants. Ed Pavlić looks at race and gentrification in San Francisco through two films; and David Adjaye talks about art and architecture, saying "the generative roots of architecture indicate that it is the support, the frame, for bodily rituals. And ritual is how architecture is birthed."

Video: Africa - States of independence - the scramble for Africa

Yinka Shonibare - The scramble of Africa

Black History Month - This is a must see documentary about the impact of colonialism on Africa.

Video: Debate on being Black in Canadian culture

A great video on Being Black in Canadian Culture. The invited guests talk about the comparison between the African-American and the Black Canadian experience, why some young people don't like Black History Month and about the pros and cons of Tyler Perry.

Video: Black European music (women) - Black History Month special

Because it's Black History Month a special Black History compilation of chart-topping Afro-European (or Black European) female singers, who made their mark nationally and internationally. Next week the men. Best way to start is with a video of Sade - Nothing Can Come Between Us (UK) of 1988. The band's first hit single was "Your Love Is King" from the debut album, Diamond Life (1984).

Video: Paris Black Night - A musical voyage

The film Paris Black Night (1990) takes you to the black night life of Paris in the Nineties. A film of French director Benny Malapa and co produced with Yves Billon. It's in French and not subtitled, but it's about music, dance and clubs, so if you don't speak French it's not a problem because you will feel the vibe anyway. 

TALK: Dutch artist Remy Jungerman on connecting Afro-religion and art

During the conversation Surinamese-Dutch Artist Remy Jungerman will talk on 10 February about how is work is influenced by Afro-religious esthetics. Jungerman is an independent fine artists and curator who lives and works in Amsterdam, he is considered one of the influential black fine artists in the Netherlands.

Video: Black History Month USA 2013 - A special celebration

Photo: Black American family after the Emancipation

For Black History Month in the US this a very special year. This year it's 150 years ago American President Lincoln issued the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. This document changed America, ended slavery and gave African-Americans hope for equality. And this year it's 50 years ago Martin Luther King delivered his famous "I Have A Dream" speech in the famous March on Washington in 1963.

New blog: Black Stories From Spain

I forgot to write a post about this blog, but better late than never. 

Intro: "In this blog I will be talking about what is like to grow and live in this country as an Afrospanish nowadays. Let me introduce myself. I’m a journalist,  a 24-years-old university student (still) whispering from Spain, where I grew up. I did not come to life here, though, as my mun was in centre Africa in those sunny

Black Heritage Amsterdam Tours

The Black Heritage Amsterdam Tour informs, inspires and educates, whether you are a descendant of former enslaved, an educator, or a visitor who is interested in learning more about the contributions of the African Diaspora to Dutch society from the 16th century to the present. 

Black Brazilian women protest against racist hair ad

Hair product Cadiveu Brasil launched a controversial campaign were various white people were photographed using huge afro wigs and holding a sign that says “eu preciso de Cadiveu (I need Cadiveu)”. Check the whole story at www.blackwomenofbrazil.co 

Hans Massaquoi - Ebony editor who grew up black in Nazi Germany dies

Ebony — Hans Massaquoi, the former managing editor of Ebony magazine who wrote the  distinctive memoir "Destined to Witness: Growing up Black in Nazi Germany", has died. 

Michelle Obama attends abolition of slavery commemoration in Amsterdam?

Amsterdam Mayor Eberhard van der Laan has sent an invitation to the First Lady of the United States to come to Amsterdam and speech during the ceremony of the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, according to Het Parool.   

Video: "Ebony Towers" - Black academia versus authentic street black in US and UK

Photo: Black American academic Cornel West

"You can can get more love and consideration in black culture by going out of prison and being a recent ex convict than you can by getting a master's degree," says African-American academic Eric Dyson in the BBC documentary "Ebony Towers: The New Black Intelligentsia" by David Olusoga. A documentary which compares the state of black academia in the US and the UK and its relationship with the young urban Hip Hop generation. Update: According to AfricansArise, who uploaded the documentary in 2009, the documentary was actually produced in around 2003-2004, hence the lack of Obama.

Video: UK singer Laura Mvula - "Green Garden"

London singer songwriter Laura Mvula has debuted her new video, "Green Garden". The single is taken from her forthcoming album, "Sing To The Moon".

Video: Documentary "Black Russians - The Red Experience"

Shadow and act profiled the documentary "Black Russians - The Red Experience". A story of the lives and experiences of the black Americans who went to the Soviet Union during the Stalinist era in search of an ideal life. Escaping from racism and the Great Depression, they dove into new lives, having “nothing to lose” and no reason to turn back. Did they find what they were looking for? Their descendants who live in Russia and America today will share a story of their ancestors as well as their own.

The subjects include Wayland Rudd Jr., a Moscow-based singer and the son of an African-American actor who moved to the Soviet Union in the 1930s, and Russian TV personality Yelena Khanga, granddaughter of a Mississippi cotton farmer and a Polish-Jewish American woman who relocated to then Soviet Uzbekistan, the cradle of the country’s cotton industry, around the same time.  See video below.

Video: Protest against removal of Black British heroes from school National Curriculum

Over 40 leading British trade unionists and personalities want the Education Secretary to rethink his proposals to axe Crimean war heroine Mary Seacole and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano as required study in UK schools.

Book: "The Black Russian" - The story of Frederick Bruce Thomas

The Black Russian is the incredible story of black American Frederick Bruce Thomas, born in 1872 to former slaves who became prosperous farmers in Mississippi.  A rich white planter’s attempt to steal their land forced them to flee to Memphis, where Frederick’s father was brutally murdered.

After leaving the South and working as a waiter and valet in Chicago and Brooklyn, Frederick sought greater freedom in London, then crisscrossed Europe, and—in a highly unusual choice for a black American at the time—went to Russia in 1899.  Because he found no color line there, Frederick made Moscow his home. He renamed himself Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas, married twice, acquired a mistress, and took Russian citizenship.