Solofo Randrianja

Education and early career

Randrianja was raised in Madagascar, where his father was a political organizer.^[1]

Randrianja earned a Ph.D. and habilitation from the Denis Diderot University of Paris VII. During political unrest in Madagascar, Randrianja was a potential target due to his advocacy of democracy. He and his family fled to Chicago.^[2]

Later career

With Stephen Ellis, Randrianja wrote Madagascar: A Short History, considered by the Africanist academic community to be a critical reference work in Malagasy history.^[3][4] In fact, the only prior history of Madagascar written in English was published in 1995 by British diplomat Mervyn Brown.^[5] During this time, he was also awarded a fellowship at the African Studies Centre Leiden.^[6] Following the 2009 Malagasy coup d'état, Randrianja edited and published a collection of viewpoints and analyses on the incident, Madagascar, le coup d'État de mars 2009.^[7] Later in the 2010s, Randrianja served as a fellow at the Nantes Institute for Advanced Study^[8] and at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy.^[9]

Randrianja has been interviewed as a political expert on contemporary Madagascar politics, particularly in light of the contentious 2023 Malagasy presidential election.^[10][11]

He has also served as co-editor-in-chief of the journal Identity, Culture, and Politics: an Afro-Asian Dialogue (French: Identité, culture et politique : un dialogue afro-asiatique).^[12]