Publisher: Akashic Books. As part of African Poetry Book Fund (APBF)’s New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Sita), edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani. Publication Date: 11 June 2019. * In You Too Will Know Me, the debut chapbook by the Ghanaian poet Ama Asantewa Diaka, life is a paradoxical tightrope and she […]
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The Auditory Art of Storytelling in A Small Silence | Reviews by Ainehi
A Small Silence is the debut novel by Nigerian poet Jumoke Verissimo. The story is sad, funny, and inspiring all at once and introduces two of the most intriguing characters I have encountered in Nigerian fiction in a long while. Most importantly, the novel showed me how sound could heighten the emotional intensity of […]
Read an Exclusive Excerpt from Jumoke Verissimo’s A Small Silence
We are happy to share an exclusive excerpt from Jumoke Verissimo’s A Small Silence, which comes out on July 30. The novel tells an unusual story, one that readers will find delightfully surprising. Every day at 9 pm, a young woman named Desire visits an ex-prisoner named Prof. in his dark apartment (he likes the […]
The Poetics of the Outcast in Wayétu Moore’s She Would Be King | Reviews by Ainehi
1 She Would Be King by Wayetu Moore takes me back to one of the most tragic characters in African literature. Unoka the father of Okonkwo. Unoka always had trouble fitting in. As a child, he roams village roads, singing to birds instead of learning to farm yams. He grows up to become the least […]
Review | AfroSF v3, Edited by Ivor Hartmann: Of Space Ships, Planets and the Memory of the Future | Ikhide R. Ikheloa
“African science fiction is not rising. It is here,” writes Tade Thompson in a defiant but illuminating piece about that genre of writing called African Science Fiction and Fantasy. Thompson is a proud leader of the pack of writers of African descent, or who live in the continent, who write identity-bending, mind-bending experimental stuff far […]
Review | Ebenezer Obadare Takes On Jiving Pastors and Thieving Politicians in Pentecostal Republic | Ikhide Ikheloa
Often when one thinks of African writing, it is often about fiction. African fiction is widely celebrated globally, with the traffic enabled by highly publicized Western prizes, forums, workshops, residencies, etc. One can then be forgiven for thinking that all Africans write is fiction and the occasional poem. The truth is that there is an […]
#WeLoveBooks | Silence is My Mother Tongue by Sulaiman Addonia
2018 has been a rich harvest for African fiction. Just when we thought the year couldn’t yield any more gems, Sulaiman Addonia’s Silence is a Mother Tongue comes out and wows us with one of the most lovable female characters we’ve seen in African fiction this year. Set in an East African refugee camp, the […]
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