The Zimbabwean novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga was recent featured in The Guardian‘s “Books That Made Me” series, in which authors answer questions about other writers’ works that impacted their careers. Dangarembga is the author of the classic Nervous Conditions, and her most recent novel This Mournable Body was published by Graywolf Press in 2018. Among the […]
Tag Archives: Ben Okri
Happy 82nd Birthday, Ngūgī wa Thiong’o! Read These Introductions to His Novels by Ben Okri, Namwali Serpell, Uzodinma Iweala, Abdulrazak Gurnah, & Moses Isegawa
It’s Ngūgī wa Thiong’o’s 82nd birthday! The prolific legend has published 34 books in total. His fictional works include seven novels: Weep Not, Child (1964), The River Between (1965), A Grain of Wheat (1967, 1992), Petals of Blood (1977), Caitaani Mutharaba-Ini (Devil on the Cross, 1980), Matigari ma Njiruungi (1986), Mũrogi wa Kagogo (Wizard of the Crow, 2006), and Kenda Muiyuru: Rugano Rwa Gikuyu na Mumbi (2018), published […]
Novels by Achebe, Adichie, Okri, Gyasi, & Coetzee Make BBC’s List of 100 Novels That Shaped Our World
In 2018, BBC Culture polled literary experts around the world to “nominate up to five fictional stories they felt had shaped mindsets or influenced history.” They received responses from 108 writers, critics, journalists, academics, and translators from 35 countries, who selected novels, folk tales, poetry, and dramas in 33 different languages. We ran a piece […]
Twelve African Writers on the Legacy of Toni Morrison, for Decades the Greatest Living Writer
Toni Morrison, for decades the greatest living writer, passed on at 88, on 6 August. We have compiled tributes to her, published on other sites, by Namwali Serpell, Diana Evans, Bernardine Evaristo, Chigozie Obioma, Ben Okri, Aminatta Forna, Afua Hirsch, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, Margaret Busby, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Laila Lalami. For […]
Ben Okri to Headline the 2019 African Book Festival in Berlin, with Ainehi Edoro, Musa Okwonga as Moderators | All the Guests + Key Events
Ben Okri will headline the 2019 African Book Festival in Berlin, curated by Tsitsi Dangarembga, where panels will be moderated by Brittle Paper founder Ainehi Edoro, the Berlin-based writers Musa Okwonga and Clementine Burnley, and TV literary programme host Denis Scheck. The event—funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds, presented by the literary agency InterKontinental, and themed “Transitioning from Migration”—will be held […]
The Freedom Artist, Ben Okri’s New Novel Forthcoming in January 2019, Is a Rallying Call in a Post-Truth Society
Ben Okri has a new novel forthcoming in January 2019. The Nigerian novelist-poet-essayist, who is the only black African to receive the Booker Prize, in 1991 for his The Famished Road, had the 256-page book rights acquired by Head of Zeus for release in the UK in February 2019, by HarperCollins for release in Australia […]
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