In the Spirit of Resistance: The Andrée Blouin Prize: The Second Pan Africa Newsletter (2025)

Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental Pan Africa,

2025 is a great time to be a woman and a terrible time to be one as well. On the one hand, this year is the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action at the United Nations which marked a sea change in the promotion of the rights of women and girls across the world. At least on paper, women have more protections than they have ever had before. In Bogotá, a state-owned women-run bus service, La Rolita, is making the roads safer, tackling gender equality and challenging stereotypes about women’s strengths. In publishing, women authors now account for over 50% of the industry and their inclusion has led to greater revenue, and more diversity amongst readers.

On the other hand, President Donald Trump’s defunding of sexual and reproductive healthcare has left approximately 11.7 million women and counting in the lurch when it comes to contraceptives, HIV/AIDS treatment, and abortion care. Male violence against women is a frightening epidemic. Late last year, Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei, became the latest in a line of women athletes in Western Kenya to die at the hands of their partners. In South Africa, where I live, 11 women are murdered a day.

Dieudonné Sana Wambeti (Central African Republic), Bangui, 2020.

It is in this moment, at once hopeful and demanding, that I’d like to announce the first Andrée Blouin Prize, a beacon dedicated to honouring the legacy of Andrée Blouin (1921–1986), a formidable political activist and writer from the Central African Republic. Blouin was not just a participant in Africa’s liberation movements; she was an architect of resistance, a fearless voice against colonial oppression, and a strategist whose work left an indelible mark on the continent’s fight for freedom.

As feminist Jessica Horn reminds us, ‘so much of the story of African resistance has been told in the masculine.’ It is time for us to also remember the women who dedicated their lives to African liberation. The Andrée Blouin Prize is a direct challenge to this erasure. It seeks to amplify the voices of African women, cisgender and transgender, writing about history, politics, and current affairs from a left perspective. This prize is not just an accolade; it is a reclamation of space, a declaration that African revolutionary women’s narratives will no longer be sidelined.

The winner of the prize will receive an advance of $2000 and a publishing contract with Inkani Books, our people’s movement-driven publishing house. Entries are open to all women living on the African continent. We foreground voices of colour, honouring the diversity and richness of African experiences. Whether you are chronicling histories untold, dissecting contemporary political struggles, or envisioning radical futures ‒ your words matter.

Roger Botembe Mimbayi (Democratic Republic of Congo), Abstract Bull, 2001.

Blouin’s life was a testament to defiance. Born into a world that sought to confine her, she broke every chain placed upon her. Separated from her family at three, she endured the brutalities of colonial orphanages, faced systemic racism, and personal tragedies. Yet, these were not endpoints; they were catalysts. In her book, My Country, Africa: Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria, she wrote, ‘I refused to be invisible.’

Her journey from the streets of Bangui to the heart of liberation movements across the continent is storied with revolutionary milestones. In 1960, she organised 45,000 women in a single month for the Feminine Movement for African Solidarity in the Congo. She was Patrice Lumumba’s right hand, his speechwriter and diplomatic liaison. Blouin was also a trusted confidante and advisor to leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Ahmed Ben Bella (Algeria), Félix Houphouët-Boigny (Ivory Coast), and Sékou Touré (Guinea).

Manyaku Mashilo (South Africa), Passage to Prayer, 2023.

The Andrée Blouin Prize is administered by Inkani Books, a project of Tricontinental Pan-Africa. Inkani Books is more than a publisher; it is a battleground in the war of ideas, dedicated to pan-Africanism, Marxism, and the struggles of the Global South. Our recent titles include Decolonising the Palestinian Mind by Haidar Eid, Izimpabanga Zomhlaba (the first isiZulu translation of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth), and Can Africans Do Economics? (edited by Grieve Chelwa).

If you are an African woman with a story that resists, challenges, and reimagines, this prize is for you. Submit your work here, stand tall in the lineage of revolutionaries, and let your words ignite minds and movements. For queries, contact us at [email protected]. Together, let us write, resist, and remember.

Warmly,

Efemia Chela

Efemia Chela is publishing director at Inkani Books and communications officer at Tricontinental Pan-Africa. Her research focuses on feminism and LGBTQ+ activism in Africa.