What stories were African audiences enjoying before the novel came to the continent in the late 19th century? We did a little digging in the archives and put together this introductory list of pre-modern African literature. If you’re not familiar with African literary texts before the 20th century, here is your chance to explore 17th […]
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Songs We Learn From Trees is the First Anthology of Amharic Poetry in English
Songs We Learn from Trees is an anthology of Ethiopian Amharic poetry in English. The first of its kind, the 304-paged collection features much-loved giants of the 20th century Ethiopian poetry such as Kebede Mikael and Tsegaye Gabre Medhin, in addition to poems by over 30 contemporary poets, some living and working in Ethiopia and […]
Three Sisters: A Biafran Lore of Love, Lust and Loss | Osareme Edeoghon | Review
BY THE END of February, Inua Ellam’s Three Sisters, based on Chekhov’s eponymous play, had run for three months at the National Theatre in London. The play chronicles the survival of three Igbo sisters through the Biafran war. It shows dreams displaced, minds metamorphosed and hopes harangued by the war. The play starts with a […]
Lanaire Aderemi: An Evening with Verse Writer | Photos + Event Review | Danielle Koku
All photos credited to @LyraPhotoLab. Lanaire Aderemi has carved a niche for herself as an underrated gem shared by the UK and Nigeria—the former the nation of her adulthood, the latter her home country. Her “An Evening with Verse Writer” series has lured an audience of diaspora-led curiosities into exploring the intricacies of their constantly […]
What We Are Reading This Week | A Feminist Guide to Living and Thinking Sensuously
In the final week of women’s history month, we are celebrating a writer whose work has inspired us for years. Minna Salami’s debut Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone offers an Africa-centered, woman-centered, and black feminist approach to everything from power to beauty to womanhood to liberation. The book is fresh off the press—out […]
What We are Reading This Week | A Novel Honoring the Emotional Truth of Women’s Lives
On week three of women’s history month, we are celebrating a novel that centers the emotional truth of a woman’s life. Ayobami Adebayo’s debut novel Stay With Me was quite the rave when it came out in 2018. It received massive shout outs from Margaret Atwood and New York Times royalty Michiko Kakutani. Stay With […]
On Max Siollun’s Nigeria’s Soldiers of Fortune: The Abacha and Obasanjo Years | Ikhide R. Ikheloa
Only three of Nigeria’s living heads of state, current and former, have bothered to write a biography. Given its leaders’ refusal or reluctance to record their stewardship, or to promote the study of history in schools, Nigeria’s history has frequently consisted of urban legends, personal beliefs and rival conspiracy theories that vary depending on the […]
What We Are Reading This Week | A Radical Gospel for Feminist Revolutionaries
It’s week two of women’s history month, and we are celebrating angry feminists! Angry feminists, militant feminists, radical feminists, fire and brimstone feminists, call them what you will. But they are rhetorical warriors. They are writers, thinkers, activists who rudely awaken us from our political slumber to remind us that dismantling the patriarchy is more […]
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