ALAN McGUIRE welcomes the complete poems of Seamus Heaney for the unmistakeable memory of colonialism that they carry
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The looting of African heritage
FRANCOISE VERGES introduces a powerful new book that explores the damage done by colonial theft
ARROGANCE AND IGNORANCE: Group of six European men sitting, surrounded by Looted objects from the Benin Punative Raid, 18 February 1897
[British Museum/Public Domain]
GORDON PARSONS is fascinated by a musical — and questioning — survey of Shakespeare’s attitude to women
MATTHEW HAWKINS enjoys the work of reading the essays of a rigorous and leading London/Caribbean cultural participant
ALEX HALL appreciates the history of a famous shoot-out that is sourced from diaries, letters, and newspapers of the time
MARIA DUARTE recommends an extraordinary film that explores an absent father’s attempt to make up to his sons
JOHN GREEN, MARIA DUARTE and LEO BOIX review The Shepherd and the Bear, Hamlet, Twinless, and 100 Nights of Hero
Fifteen Colonial Thefts: A Guide to Looted African Heritage in Museums
Edited by Sela Adjei and Yann LeGall, Pluto, £25
EUROPEAN colonisation of Africa was not only about armed conquest, massacres and the exploitation of resources. It was also about the appropriation of spiritual and political symbols. It led to the erasure of a social, cultural, and symbolic world.
The book, Fifteen Colonial Thefts: A Guide to Looted African Heritage in Museums, adds to the growing literature on the history of the colonial looting of African art and heritage and the issue of restitution, reappropriation and return. Published by Pluto, the book is edited by Ghanaian-born multidisciplinary artist Sela K Adjei and Berlin-based postdoctoral researcher Yann Le Gall.
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