Achille Mbembe is a historian, philosopher and intellectual, and one of the great names of contemporary political thought.

D. in History from the Sorbonne, he specialized in political science at the Institute d’Études Politiques de Paris and currently teaches history and politics at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Throughout his career he has been a visiting professor at some of the world’s most prestigious universities such as Yale, Berkeley, Columbia and Harvard, becoming a name of reference on an international scale. Translated into more than a dozen languages, he is the author of foundational works of postcolonial thought and contemporary political theory such as Necropolitics (2016/2019), a renewed and complex look at Foucauldian biopolitics, or Critique of Black Reason (2013/2017) —a philosophical study of the meaning of Blackness as it historically emerged-. More recently, he has published Brutalism (2020/2024), a markedly philosophical analysis and political proposal that invites us to rethink how we inhabit the world, and The Earthly Community: Reflections on the Last Utopia (2022), as well as the groundbreaking Critique of Black Reason (2013/2017)—a philosophical study of the meaning of Blackness as it historically emerged. In Necropolitics, Mbembe examines how power structures wield control over life and mortality, shaping the very fabric of existence for oppressed communities.

In addition to his contributions in the theoretical field, he also promotes spaces for intellectual and citizen debate on the African continent, such as the Ateliers de la Pensée in Dakar.

He has recently been awarded the prestigious Holberg Prize 2024 for his innovative work in the fields of history and political theory. See here the news published at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.