The Cameroonian academic has been announced as the recipient of one of the largest international prizes awarded annually to an outstanding researcher in the humanities, social sciences, law or theology, the Holberg Prize, 2024 edition.
The prize is administered by the University of Bergen on behalf of the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research and will be awarded at a ceremony on 6 June at the University of Bergen in Norway.
Achille Mbembe is a research professor of history and politics at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
Mbembe, according to the press release announcing the Holberg Prize, is one of the most widely read and cited academics on the African continent and receives the award for his pioneering research in African history, post-colonial studies, humanities and social sciences over four decades.
As both an academic and a public intellectual, he is known for his ability to unite existing thinking on colonialism and decolonisation with pressing questions on topics such as contemporary migration regimes, global citizenship, restitution and reparation, technology, climate change and planetary futures.
“Mbembe’s work goes beyond a particularised notion of decolonisation to a universalist refocusing of the human,” says Holberg Committee Chair Heike Krieger. “For him, this involves a dedication to facing historical truth, while learning and remembering across South-North divides.“
