Twelve Sins janvier, 1990: name and claim. At least that is how it begins with boys like me who entered the world backward. février, 2020: in my father’s house my mother wears fear round her neck like a golden bell and with each step my father’s thunderous tolling on her skin—like that time she shaved […]
Archive by Author
Review | Hybridising Histories in Peter Kimani’s Dance Of The Jakaranda | Matthew Lecznar
Peter Kimani’s novel Dance of the Jakaranda—published in the UK by Saqi Books—makes for an enlightening and beguiling read. At one level, it is the story of Kenya’s transition from British colonial rule to independence in 1963, told from the perspectives of a diverse range of protagonists. But as the narrative proceeds, Kimani gradually adds […]
Review | Selves: An Afro Anthology of Creative Nonfiction | Adefolami Ademola
READ: Selves: An Afro Anthology of Creative Nonfiction | New Project Collects Powerful Nonfiction from Across Africa Just like previous generations have produced platforms like The Horn, Black Orpheus, the Mbari Club, The New Horn, amongst others, that captured new voices, culminating in the creation of the literary periods in the country, it is imperative, for every […]
Long Before #MeToo, There Was Firdaus | Shayera Dark
Long before Twitter and the #MeToo movement, there was Firdaus, a sex worker who was on death row for murdering her pimp. Her story, narrated to and chronicled by Egyptian feminist author Nawal El Sadaawi in the first-person biography-novel Woman at Point Zero, remains perennially relevant in its unflinching rendering of ways men have and continue […]
Passport to Her Foreign Land | Review of Dami Ajayi’s “A Woman’s Body Is a Country” | IfeOluwa Nihinlola
In 1998, Cuban-American anthropologist and writer Ruth Behar reviewed the Cuban geishas painting by visual artist Rocio Garcia in an essay titled “A Woman’s Body Is Her Country.” In 2017, Nigerian poet Dami Ajayi published his second collection of poetry and titled it A Woman’s Body Is a Country. It is easy to jump on […]
I hold a doctorate in English from Duke University and recently joined the Marquette University English faculty as an Assistant Professor. I love teaching African fiction and contemporary British novels. Brittle Paper is the virtual space/station where I play and experiment with ideas on how to reinvent African fiction and literary culture.
