What's rising.
Leading Ladies Africa Spotlight.
Jessica Horn is the July 2025 Spotlight feature on the Leading Ladies Africa platform. She shares insights on leadership, her upbringing and how it cultivated her sense of justice and African women’s agency, and thoughts on the future of African feminist activism.
“ I was lucky to have entered an African feminist movement that was multigenerational and panAfrican in character, seeking to craft feminist freedoms that were global in scope. I have had the privilege to be in community with independence era activists as well as African feminists from the Vienna, Cairo and Beijing generation that had shaped international policy and law on women’s rights in the 1990s. They were clear on the fact that if you want to win you have to address structural power. You have to get in there and engage the state, rework mainstream power, and demand presence, voice, recognition, protection and resources. They also taught me that you have to be brave. They faced down colonial violence, dictatorships, military rule, civil war, apartheid, and the silencing force of social stigma. They built movements and they also built organisations. And they wrote, they theorised and produced literature.”
Read the full interview here.
Debut book! African Feminist Praxis: Cartographies of Liberatory Worldmaking.
In a world in desperate need of new imaginaries, what can we learn from the movements and activists who have worked diligently to craft worlds shaped by collective thriving? Commissioned by Sage Publishers, Jessica Horn’s new book African Feminist Praxis: Cartographies of Liberatory Worldmaking offers fresh insight into decades of African feminist organising to reconceptualise and remake the world. The book explores the animating principles of kinship, courage, pleasure, care and memory.
Out January 2025 globally! Available for pre-order. Check with your local independent bookshop. For online orders you can purchase:
In the USA from Bookshop.org and Amazon (if you really must)
In the UK from Bookshop.org.uk , Hive and Amazon
African region stockists : Cheche Books & Soma Nami (Nairobi, Kenya); Clarkes Books (Cape Town, South Africa); The Commune & Love Books (Johannesburg, South Africa)
Feature on Black Women Radicals
Jessica Horn was interviewed by Jaimee Swift, founder of Black Women Radicals in a dialogue that explored Pan-African feminist organising and Jessica’s own political praxis.
Read the feature here.
Finalist for Guilio Regeni Alumni Impact Award
In April 2021 Jessica Horn was selected as one of three finalists for this year’s Giulio Regeni Alumni Impact Award- given to former students of the United World College- USA. The United World College movement has a vision for global education grounded in principles of peace and building a sustainable future.
Read more here.
Girl: Essays on womanhood & belonging in the age of black girl magic .
“Girl [by Kenya Hunt] is a provocative, heartbreaking and frequently hilarious collection of original essays on what it means to be black, a woman, a mother and a global citizen in today’s ever-changing world”.
Jessica Horn’s essay "So we don't die tomorrow" is included in Kenya Hunt’s Girl (Harper Collins, November 2020)- along with essays by Candice Carty-Williams, Funmi Fetto, Ebele Okobi and Freddie Harrel.
Available for pre-order in the UK here and in the USA here- and in most bookshops - shop independent!
Launching .the temple of her skin fundraiser
.the temple of her skin is a visual documentary initiative documenting African women’s tattoo and scarification journeys. It is imagined and co-created by Jessica Horn and Laurence Sessou. The fundraiser is live! Support via GoFundMe here.