Koni Benson is an historian, organizer, and educator. She is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Since 2006 she has been coproducing life histories of self-organization and unfolding political struggles of collective resistance for access to land and public services in South Africa. She is committed to creative approaches to history that link art, activism, and African history, and draws on critical approaches to people’s history projects, popular education, and feminist collaborative research praxis, in her work with various social movement archives, and student, activist, and cultural collectives in southern Africa.
Crossroads: I Live Where I Like: A Graphic History
SKU: 9781629638355
Author: Koni Benson • Illustrators: André Trantraal, Nathan Trantraal, and Ashley E. Marais • Foreword by Robin D.G. Kelley
Series: PM Press/Kairos
ISBN: 978-1-62963-835-5
Published: 01/2021
Format: Paperback
Size: 7×10
Pages: 192
Subjects: Comics / History-Africa
Praise
“Crossroads is, quite simply, beautiful. It is intellectual
and appealing and everything one could hope for from this kind of
project. It is a meaningful engagement with a deeply troubling and
enormously significant past. Not only does it weave text and images
together to their best effect, but this is also one of the most
insightful studies of urban history and social movements in any medium.”
—Trevor Getz, professor of African history, San Francisco State University; author of Abina and the Important Men: A Graphic History; and series editor of the Oxford University Press’s Uncovering History series
“Through the narratives of women’s struggles told in an honest and compelling way, Crossroads
is an essential activist’s handbook. It is a long-awaited and important
compilation that is fundamental in understanding how women rose up
against oppression and dispossession.”
—Nomusa Makhubu, winner of the
ABSA L’Atelier Gerard Sekoto Award and the Prix du Studio National des
Arts Contemporains, Le Fresnoy
“Koni Benson and her colleagues have produced an excellent and
colourful history of the people of Crossroads. Based on original
scholarly research, the comic books bring to life the tribulations and
resistance of poor black people, especially women, in the face of
constant state violence. Their determination to organise and to struggle
for the right to a decent life in Cape Town, whose authorities were
determined to exclude them from the city, hold crucial lessons for
contemporary movements of the poor and marginalised. The Crossroads comics are a fine example of popular history and should be compulsory reading in our schools and communities.”
—Noor Nieftagodien, author of The Soweto Uprising and Alexandra: A History
“Nuanced in its story-telling, Crossroads draws on the best
that graphic traditions have to offer: iconic imagery, bold and
effective compositional frames, thick colour patches that recall the
vivid life that survived the bleak years of apartheid, and wonderful
characters, who speak from but also beyond their specific historical and
geographical locations. Crossroads is thus both African and
not, speaking as all good books do, to a variety of human situations,
across our planet. A book that crosses genres, it is at once memory,
history and a feminist fable. Suitable for all that can read and hold
ideas in their heads, and who love a good tale.”
—V. Geetha, feminist historian and editorial director of Tara Books, India
“I am aware of this work because of its international circulation and
reputation for advancing quality scholarship in original forms and
formats. I cannot speak too highly of this series, which dramatizes
African women’s collective resistance to political oppression in a
historically grounded yet accessible medium—what we have come to call
the graphic history.”
—Antoinette Burton, author of The Trouble with Empire
Book Events
october, 2024
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Reviews
- Crossroads: I Live Where I Like reviewed in the Canadian Journal of African Studies
- Crossroads: I live Where I like— A New Agenda Review
- The myth of 1994 – women, resistance and power in South Africa. Crossroads: I Live Where I Like: A Graphic History
- Crossroads: I Live Where I Like: A Graphic History in Publishers Weekly
Interviews
- Koni Benson talks Crossroads: I live Where I like – A Graphic History
- Crossroads: I Live Where I Like on BAR Book Report
Mentions
- Crossroads: I Live Where I Like shortlisted for Best Non-Fiction Monograph, National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences
- Turnaround Staff Pick: Crossroads: I Live Where I Like: A Graphic History