James Pogue: Journalist and Author of "Wagner in Africa"

Today we have James Pogue, a journalist and contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine who has written for Harper's, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Granta, and elsewhere. We talk about his essay “Wagner in Africa” published in the extraction issue of Granta that came out this Spring which is about his reporting trip to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic or CAR, and the presence of the Russian private military company called the Wagner Group in CAR and CAR’s geopolitical history. The Wagner group offers stabilization against rebel groups and security for CAR’s mines to operate but reportedly has profited billions of dollars from gold mining in CAR and other African countries, which funds the Wagner Group and likely the war in Ukraine. James weighs in on what the Wagner Group presence means for CAR historically and in the future. Wagner in Africa Gold Fever in the Coup Belt: The Mines of Mauritania Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West