Abstract
Olivier Barlet's African Cinemas: Decolonizing the Gaze is an important and timely addition to African cinema literature mostly because of the reflexive quality of its enunciation which is captured in the Preface where Barlet positions the reader with reference to the author's and the reader's own journeys in discovering Africa through its cinema. The very fact of recognising the many different cinematic experiences that make the African film is important in itself since to date Africa has continued to be viewed as a mono-facteted experience in discordance to its cultural diversity and histories.