Fifteen Colonial Thefts

A Guide to Looted African Heritage in Museums

A timely and compelling contribution to the debate around repatriation of looted African artefacts, illustrated and contributed to by African artists and writers

'Eloquent and powerful' - Françoise Vergès

Debates around restitution and decolonising museums continue to rage across the world. Artefacts, effigies and ancestral remains are finally being accurately contextualised and repatriated to their homelands.

Fifteen Colonial Thefts amplifies these discussions, exploring the history of colonial violence in Africa through the prism of fifteen African belongings - all looted at the height of the imperial era and brought to European museums.

Structured around three arenas - the battlefield, the royal palace, and the realm of the sacred - the book displays how colonial officers violently plundered Africa. It explores the meaning of those cultural artefacts at the time of their appropriation and today in an era of restitution.

With writers from Europe and Africa, including scientists, museum professionals, artists and activists, the book illuminates the collective trauma and loss of cultural, historical and spiritual knowledge that colonial theft engendered.

Contributor: Sela K. Adjei (Edited by), Yann LeGall (Edited by), Peju Layiwola (Foreword by), Fergus Nicholl (Contributions by), Osman Nusairi (Contributions by), Mwelela Cele (Contributions by), Jan König (Contributions by), Julia Kennedy (Contributions by), Christopher J. Philipp (Contributions by), Foreman Bandama (Contributions by), Kokou Azamede (Contributions by), Gabriel Mzei Orio (Contributions by), Emanuel Admassu (Contributions by), Mnyaka Sururu Mboro (Contributions by), Gaëlle Beaujean (Contributions by), Yrine Matchinda (Contributions by), Nii Kwate Owoo (Contributions by), Felwine Sarr (Contributions by), Bénédicte Savoy (Contributions by)

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