African literature

Tag Archives: African literature

Features, Lit Scene, News October 16, 2019

Bernardine Evaristo: Your Guide to All Eight Books by the Booker Prize Winner

While better known in the African literary scene as the founder of the massively influential Brunel International African Poetry Prize, Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo, born in 1959 to a Nigerian father and an English mother, has for two decades been one of the most innovative writers in British and contemporary literature, reimagining history to create […]

The 2019 Brittle Paper Awards Are Open for Nominations

The 2019 Brittle Paper Awards are open for nominations. Currently in its third year, the Awards were established to mark our seventh anniversary in 2017. They are our way of highlighting the best pieces of online literary writing by Africans: an avenue to showcase the range of thinking, stylistic innovation, and exploration of subjects happening […]

Negritude Is Omnipresent in African Writing: On Its Birth, Rebellion, & Perceived Disappearance | D. S. Battistoli

I Earlier this year, in the context of an English-language debate on race consciousness in Africa, the topic of the Negritude movement came up briefly. The Zimbabwean-South African writer Panashe Chigumadzi wrote in her finely-argued essay, “Why I’m No Longer Talking to Nigerians About Race,” published in Africa Is a Country: Wọlé Sóyinká had been […]

PHOTOS | Bambooks Limited Launches Mobile Reading App and Announces Monthly Subscription Service

There is a myth that says Africans do not read and if you want to hide something from them put it in a book. A Lagos-based start-up company, Bambooks, is out to prove that these statements are indeed false and that Africans especially Nigerians love reading books. On Thursday 22nd November, Bambooks held a Press […]

Ainehi Edoro’s Essay on the God Complex of African Writers Sets Off Social Media Reaction

Once in a while, an essay comes along, stinging and unrelenting, that tears readers into camps of agreement and disagreement. Three days ago, UW-Madison professor Ainehi Edoro, founder of Brittle Paper, came up with such an essay. Published in Africa Is a Country, “Gods of Fiction: African Writers and the Fantasy of Power” uses Chinua […]

The Magic of Things Fall Apart

Sometime in April, I received an email from the BBC Culture’s editor to nominate five stories that I believed had “the most impact on shaping ideas and changing minds through history.” The same invitation had been sent to other writers, critics, and academic the world over. 108 people from 35 countries responded, including myself. On […]

Introducing The Village Square Journal of Literary and Political Criticism

A new magazine described as a journal of literary and political criticism has just been founded by a few enthusiasts who believe strongly that there is obviously need to have more platforms promoting works of arts from diverse voices the world over. The Village Square Journal was founded by three Nigerians: Obinna Udenwe, the author […]

Zaynab Quadri on Why You Should Attend Ake Arts and Book Festival

Zaynab Quadri is Nigeria’s leading bookstagrammer, and she says that everyone who can should make it a point of duty to attend this year’s edition of Ake Arts and Book Festival running from November 14 to the 18th. Ake Festival is an annual literary and cultural extravaganza featuring film screenings, art exhibitions, panel discussion, poetry […]