Chinua Achebe is often called the father of African literature. Writer and scholar Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ invites us to consider another angle to this long-held belief, starting from a different center. In The Rise of the African Novel, he traces deeper roots in African-language fiction, oral traditions, pamphlets, and newspapers that the standard narrative left in the margins. He asks pressing questions: how does shifting the starting point change what we read, write, and teach, and who has the authority to shape the canon?

Join Mũkoma in conversation with Wale Lawal, founder of The Republic, for Rethinking Beginnings: Mapping the Rise of the African Novel. Together they will unpack the book’s arguments, return to the multilingual late 19th and early 20th centuries that predate Achebe, examine how periodization narrows our view, consider the cost of sidelining African-language texts, and imagine what a broader literary history could open for readers and writers today.

Expect an evening that challenges long-held assumptions about African literary origins and invites a more inclusive, multilingual map of the field.

Date: Friday, 10 October 2025
Time: 5:00 PM
Venue: Roving Heights, Landmark Centre, Plot 2 & 3 Water Corporation Dr, Oniru, Victoria Island, Lagos

Register here.