Ankara Press, the new commercial imprint born out of Cassava Republic Press, set to officially launch in Summer 2026, has struck a partnership with Zikoko and Big Cabal Media to produce The Lovers’ Guide to Nigeria, a fiction anthology rooted in one of the internet’s most quietly addictive Nigerian institutions: the Love Life interview series. World rights were acquired by Assistant Editor Boluwatito “Tito” Sanusi.

The Love Life series, which has made Zikoko a fixture of Nigerian digital culture by turning the intimate and the ordinary details of how Nigerians fall in, out, and sideways through love into compulsively readable long-form interviews, is the anthology’s beating heart. The collection, curated and edited by Ope Adedeji and Zikoko Head of Content Daniel Orubo, takes those real-life accounts as raw material and hands them to fiction writers, the result being fictionised narratives that carry the texture of lived Nigerian romance. University lecture halls. Chaotic birthday parties in the thick of Detty December. Break-ups conducted in Lagos traffic. Long-distance relationships sustained on whispered late-night WhatsApp calls. Situationships. Second chances. Asexual intimacy. Quiet betrayals. Long lasting Marriages.

For Orubo, the project is less a departure than a deepening. “This book takes that further,” he said, “reimagining beloved episodes and introducing new stories through some of Nigeria’s most exciting storytellers.” Big Cabal Media CEO Tomiwa Aladekomo described the anthology as a moment the team is immensely proud of, watching the Zikoko universe migrate from screens into pages, and from a Nigerian digital readership into a global one.

The confirmed contributors are a strong signal of the editorial ambition at work: Ani Kayode Somtochukwu, Nicole Asinugo, Mowa Badmos, Edwin Okolo, Chinonso Nzeh, Kanyinsola Olorunnisola, Mariam Sule, Jeffrey Jude, Aisha Bello, and Franklyn Usouwa. Adedeji, who co-edited the collection, put it plainly: “These stories gather the beauty and contradictions of loving, living and leaving into one place. They remind us that our love stories — in all their complexity — deserve to be told.”

The Lovers’ Guide to Nigeria arrives as one of the defining early titles for Ankara Press, whose remit spans romance, thriller, fantasy, horror, and nonfiction, with a stated commitment to bringing underrepresented voices to global audiences. The imprint is currently open for submissions at ankara-press.com. Media enquiries can be directed to [email protected].