Leo Zeilig

Writer, Activist and Researcher

Leo Zeilig is a writer and researcher. He has written extensively on African politics and history, and biographies on some of Africa’s most important political thinkers and revolutionaries. Leo is also a novelist, and his critically acclaimed novel Eddie the Kid was published by Zero Books. Leo is an editor of the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE).

Leo’s books have been critically acclaimed, including reviews in The New York Times, The Guardian and The Independent. He writes in a range of newspapers, reviews, edited collections, and online platforms.

Leo is also a novelist, and his critically acclaimed novel Eddie the Kid was published by Zero Books. It was praised in The Guardian: ‘This passionate, sad and well-told book offers a compelling portrait of a flawed young radical.’ Eddie the Kid won the 2014 Creative Work prize at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. In 2017 Leo’s second novel, An Ounce of Practice, was published by Hoperoad. Praised in The Conversation as ‘a brilliant work of literary imagination.’ Leo published his third novel The World Turned Upside Down with the Nigerian publisher Books Farm House & Publishers in 2021.  His short stories have also appeared in different collections (for example see here and here).

Leo is an editor of the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) —the radical African-studies journal founded by activists and scholars in 1974— and a Research Associate at the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Books

Revolutionary for our Time
The World Turned Upside Down
Thomas Sankara (Voices of Liberation)
An Ounce of Practice
Revolutionary Movements in Africa
Revolt and Protest: Student Politics and Activism in Sub-saharan Africa
Frantz Fanon (Voices of Liberation)
Lumumba: Africa’s Lost Leader (Life & Times)
The Congo: Plunder and Resistance
Patrice Lumumba (Voices of Liberation)
Frantz Fanon: A Political Biography
Eddie the Kid
Class Struggle and Resistance in Africa
African Struggles Today
Voices for African Liberation

ROAPE logoThe Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) was established in 1974 by a group of researchers and activists in the UK and Africa. The journal and its website are committed to understanding projects of radical and revolutionary change on the continent. As an editor and founder of roape.net, Leo has interviewed and commissioned contributions from radical researchers, scholar-activists, and activists on socialist activism and transformation on the continent.