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 […]
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 […]
Bissau-Guinean Writer Yovanka Paquete on How African and Global Literatures Are Open to a Few Lusophone Writers
Bissau-Guinean writer Yovanka Paquete has penned an essay about the lack of visibility for Lusophone writers, both in Africa and on the global scene, in contrast to their better-known Anglophone and Francophone counterparts. Titled “The Case for Lusophone African Literature,” it is published in OZY. Paquete writes about the promise of elevation that still hasn’t […]
13 Quotes from Jose Eduardo Agualusa’s A General Theory of Oblivion on Yearning, Dreams, God, Forgetting, and Angola
Last month, with his ninth novel and twentieth book, A General Theory of Oblivion, Angola’s Jose Eduardo Agualusa became the second African to win the €100,000 International Dublin Literary Award. Published in Portuguese in 2012 and translated into English in 2016, A General Theory of Oblivion was also a finalist for the 2016 Man Booker […]
With His 20th Book, Jose Eduardo Agualusa Is the Second African to Win the International Dublin Literary Award
Angola’s Jose Eduardo Agualusa has won the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award for his novel A General Theory of Oblivion, making him the second African to do so and the first writer generally whose work had been translated from Portuguese. Formerly the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the annual prize is in its twenty-second year and, […]
Chinelo Okparanta, Mia Couto and Jose Eduardo Agualusa Shortlisted for the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award
The 2017 Dublin Literary Award has released its ten-strong shortlist, and on it are Nigeria’s Chinelo Okparanta for Under the Udala Trees, Mozambique’s Mia Couto for Confession of the Lioness, and Angola’s Jose Eduardo Agualusa for A General Theory of Oblivion. The shortlist was arrived at from a longlist of 147 books. Formerly the IMPAC […]