Shaping the present to build the future: Felwine Sarr’s vision of African emancipation

Felwine Sarr does not fit neatly into a single category. Economist, philosopher, writer and musician, he studies an Africa that, in his view, cannot be confined to one framework. His latest book, “The Making of the Present,” continues a project focused on reclaiming the continent’s own narrative.

The book appears ten years after “Afrotopia,” the work that established Sarr as a major voice in debates about Africa’s future. Published in 2016, “Afrotopia” sold several tens of thousands of copies and was translated into numerous languages.

Its impact came in part from a then-new line of thought: Africa’s emancipation could not be built through borrowed narratives. The book brought together philosophical, political and economic approaches, and helped change how the continent was discussed.

Sarr now proposes moving from utopia to action. He is a professor in the African and African American studies department at Duke University in the United States, and has also published novels, short stories and essays. His new work extends the same effort to think about Africa on its own terms.