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All over Instagram, readers share eye-catching photographs of books. This community of book loving photographers are called bookstagrammers and have become an established part of global book culture. For those who don’t know, African literature has its bookstagramming ambassadors, one of whom we are delighted to introduce to you.

Zaynab Quadri curates an Instagram page (@zaynabtyty) where she posts items from her expansive collection of books, a good part of which is African literature. We’ve stalked and loved and talked about Quadri’s Instagram page for so long and decided it was time to share her amazing world of African books with you.

We asked her during a Twitter conversation to tell us why she was so in love with African literature. Here is her beautiful response.

When you read African literature, you start to understand where a lot of other things fit in. You’ll begin to identify influences and references in your reading that you previously unable to see or didn’t even notice. My father told me that activities at the beach by white garment churches became this beautiful and spectacular thing after he read Soyinka’s The Trial of Brother Jero.

African literature connects with us on different levels and different times of our lives. That is why I created the Instagram page. I was passionate about African literature and tired of keeping it to myself. I may also have started bookstagramming to prove that reading could be an enjoyable and profitable exercise.

If you love this selection of images from Quadri’s Instagram page, follow her at @zaynabtyty


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