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 and adds to 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 Western museums.

Each chapter is accompanied by an original illustration, commissioned especially for the book, from both established and emerging African artists, bringing these stories to life for the reader. With contributors from across the continents of 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.

Sela K. Adjei is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher. He is a lecturer at the University of Media, Arts and Communication, Institute of Film and Television, Accra, Ghana.

Yann LeGall is a postdoctoral researcher on the project ‘The Restitution of Knowledge: Artefacts as Archives in the (Post) Colonial Museum’ at the Technical University in Berlin. As a member of the initiatives Berlin Postkolonial and Postcolonial Potsdam, he leads guided tours on colonial history in both cities.

The book includes a foreword by Peju Layiwola, an art historian and visual artist from Nigeria. She is Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Lagos. Her works can be found in Yemisi Shyllon Museum, Lagos, and in the homes of many private collectors. Her maternal grandfather was Oba Akenzua II, King of Benin, who ruled from 1933 until 1978. Layiwola has led public advocacy for the return of art works stolen from Benin during the Punitive Expedition of 1897.