Achille Mbembe

Achille Mbembe is one of today’s most influential African intellectuals, whose work is read and studied on all continents. He obtained his PhD in History at the Sorbonne in 1989, and currently works as a research professor at the Institute of Social and Economic Research of the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. Before, he taught History at universities such as Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania. His best-known texts are On the Postcolony (2001), Out of the Dark Night (2001), Critique of Black Reason (2015), Politiques de l’inimitié and Necropolitics (2019). For this work, he has received numerous literary awards. In the coming years, however, Mbembe plans on leaving his post as an academic and putting his effort into the establishment of an institute to improve democracy in Africa. Thanks to President Macron, France will be assisting him in this effort.