Limitless Africa

We're re-releasing this interview with the Zimbabwean author Novuyo Rosa Tschuma as part of the launch of Limitless Conversations. In these Limitless Conversations, we discuss on social media the things that matter to you. We’ll be hosting a Twitter Space discussion on African literature this Sunday, December 15th, at 7 PM CAT / 5 PM GMT. Book enthusiasts and literary advocates please come and join in. Tell us about your favourite books of the year!And please listen to this interview with Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, an award-winning Zimbabwean novelist we first released on Limitless Africa at the beginning of this year. Tschuma's debut novel House of Stone is set during the Gukahurundi massacres that took place immediately after Zimbabwean independence and remain shrouded in secrecy. Her second novel Digging Stars also received glowing reviews. It deals with an equally uncomfortable history. She charts the similarities between the reserves allocated to native Americans in the US and those allocated to indigenous people in South Africa and Zimbabwe.This is a must listen for anyone interested in African fiction, interested in reading it of course but also interested in how it is produced. Novuyo gives us a peek behind the scenes of some of the most prestigious writing institutions in the US, telling us what it's like to be a young African woman professor there. She talks about the situation in Zimbabwe and what it's like to come back home with your partner when you are queer.

Maya Horgan Famodu is a American-Nigerian venture capitalist. She talks about being a third-culture kid, what it takes to raise a $50-million fund, and what she looks for when she invests in African start-ups.

Across Africa, young entrepreneurs are making their dreams happen in challenging circumstances. Here three very different young Africans explain how they made their first million.Maya Horgan Famodu is an American-Nigerian venture capitalist, originally from Minnesota in the US. She has a VC firm called Ingressive Capital. Her latest fund is worth $50m. She’s invested in some of the biggest startups in Africa.Moulaye Tabouré is the Malian CEO and founder of ANKA, an online sales platform for African fashion and crafts based in Cote d’Ivoire. The company has raised $6.2 million in its series A funding although it has since announced it is closing its marketplace. Mountaga Keita is a Guinean-born inventor and successful businessman. He studied at Harvard University and worked in America. He came back to Guinea to launch his portable ultrasound machine.

In 2023, journalist Stanis Bujakera was imprisoned for six months. The prosecutors were aiming for 20 years. The charge? Writing an article that suggested the country's military intelligence had been involved in an assassination.Stanis Bujakera is one of Democratic Republic of Congo’s most popular journalists. In 2023, he was imprisoned for six months while reporting on the elections. The prosecutors were aiming for 20 years. After his arrest, organisations fighting for press freedom, like Reporters Without Borders, (that’s RSF), and the Congo Hold-Up investigative team, worked to free him. Journalists and intellectuals including Wole Soyinka, Leïla Slimani and Soulemayne Bachir Diagne signed petitions. And ambassadors worked behind the scenes.There are countless other journalists in Africa who are stopped from doing their job - through intimidation, censorship and violence. In this interview we remember journalists like the Cameroonian Martinez Zogo and Sylvie Yebel. And there are others who have also died in suspicious circumstances: John Williams Ntwali in Rwanda, Ahmed Hussein-Suale in Ghana, and Thulani Maseko in Eswatini.The work African journalists do is extremely dangerous. In this interview, Stanis talks about his day-to-day life in the notorious Makala jail. It’s a chilling reminder of the risks independent journalists take to tell the truth to power. 

Social media means that lies and fake news can spread faster, inflame tensions, and serve the interests of the powerful. So the work that African journalists do -  reporting facts and telling the truth - is more important than ever.Jeremias Langa is president of the Mozambican chapter of the press freedom association, Media Institute of Southern Africa.Rodriguez Katsuva is the co-founder of Congo Check, the first news website in the Democratic Republic of Congo that verifies news stories and flags up fake news.Carl Odera is an experienced Kenyan journalist who has reported from all over the continent including South Sudan. 

Extended interview with Jonathan Eig, a Pulitzer-winning author, who's written the most recent biography of Muhammad Ali. It's our chance to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of Rumble in the Jungle, the legendary fight that took place in Kinshasa, then Zaire, now the DRC where Muhammad Ali became the greatest boxer of all time.

This year it’s the 50-year anniversary of what many say was the greatest sporting event the world has ever seen. And it happened in Africa.Rumble in the Jungle, the boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali, was held on 30 October 1974 in Zaire, now the DRC. Muhammad Ali’s victory cemented his legacy and showed the world he was the ultimate Greatest of All Time. We speak to Muhammad Ali's biographer Jonathan Eig, the Pulitzer-winning author of Ali: A Life.

For this extended episode, we ‘re featuring two guests who decided to move back to the place they consider home, Sinatou Saka and Joli Moniz. Both talk about a turning point in their lives; when they realised that it would soon be too late to start afresh. Both tell us whether they now think if it was the right professional and personal decision.

Many diaspora Africans are choosing to return to the continent. These ‘repats’ - as they’re often known - are keen to seize new opportunities. In this episode, three repats tell us how and why they came to Africa.