There was an old woman with a ragged scar on her cheek who lived alone on the outskirts of Dahomey. The people all knew of her and would gawk and whisper when she passed them in the market square — the only time she entered the city — to buy fruits and vegetables. At night, they said, as if […]
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The Frozen Heart: Episode Two | The Witches of Auchi Series | Anthony Azekwoh
“To you, oh Goddess, we give our dreams, To you, oh Goddess, we give our faith, To you, oh Goddess, we give our breath. Guide us, heal us, lend us your power. We are your daughters, do not fail us in our need.” Prayer to Oya. *** Sharon Uyai was meant to be happy. She […]
Son of Affliction: Episode One | The Witches of Auchi Series | Anthony Azekwoh
“I was there in the fire, the flames that kindled the world. There was darkness, there was emptiness, there was nothing; except me, that is.” — Doreen, Private Journals 1806. *** On 71 Adelabu Street, Surulere, is a two-storey house split in half. Above is an apartment that gathers dust, mould and cobwebs. Underneath is […]
Un-Silencing Queer Nigeria: The Language of Emotional Truth | Five Writers in Conversation
To mark BRITTLE PAPER‘s 7th anniversary in 2017, we organised two conversations on our Facebook page. The second, themed “Un-Silencing Queer Nigeria: The Language of Emotional Truth,” took place on 5 August 2017 and was an insightful, urgent conversation about queerness and its exploration in Nigerian literature. Our guests were: Romeo Oriogun, winner of the 2017 […]
African Writers Series’ Classics Now Available for Affordable Downloads on OkadaBooks
In 1962, four years after the successful publication of Things Fall Apart, its British publishers Heinemann Educational Books began the African Writers Series (AWS)—a series of books by African writers packaged to give international voice to the continent’s literature in English. The series published paperback books by most of the major voices of the day: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Steve […]
Five Beautiful Acts of Generosity by African Writers
In the midst of the pressure to deliver under that heavy tag “African Writer,” in the back and forth between critics and between writers and between critics and writers, in the midst of big novels and million-dollar book deals and accumulating prizes, it is easy to lose sight of community and what it means to […]
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