TJ Benson

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Features, Lit Scene, Reviews August 23, 2017

Announcing the Brittle Paper Literary Awards: The Shortlists

August 1, 2017 was Brittle Paper‘s seventh anniversary. In celebration of this milestone, we are launching the Brittle Paper Literary Awards, to recognize the finest, original pieces of African writing published online. The awards come in five categories: Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, Essays/Think Pieces, and the Anniversary Award for works published on our blog. The winners in the fiction, […]

Art Naija Series Vol. 2 | Work Naija: The Book of Vocations | Powerful Mixed-Genre Anthology Explores the Idea of Work

Brittle Paper is delighted to bring you Work Naija: The Book of Vocations. It is the second book in the ART NAIJA series, a literary project launched last year to craft concept-based anthologies exploring various aspects of Nigerian life, ideas, and artistic forms. It is also an attempt to put together a collection of exciting […]

The Labours of the Months: Of Work and Its Refuseniks | Rotimi Babatunde

In October 2016, we published Enter Naija: The Book of Places, an anthology of creative nonfiction, photography, poetry, digital art, fiction and commentary on Nigerian cities, designed to mark the country’s 56th Independence anniversary. Featuring 35 writers and visual artists, the anthology is edited by Otosirieze Obi-Young and introduced by Ikhide R. Ikheloa, and […]

African Literary Digest: 9 Must-Reads from March, 2017

Every month, we compile a list of reads from around the Internet that we find illuminating. For January, we chose eight pieces. For February, we picked fourteen pieces. For March, we have settled on nine. They include fiction pieces that we believe are among the best we will see this year, essays that are strong contributions […]

African Literary Digest: 32 Notable Pieces of 2016

The year 2016 has been fertile for writing in general, and for creative non-fiction in particular. On the African literary scene, the most remarkable talking points would be the upsurge of new talent (see the shortlists of the Miles Morland Scholarship and the Gerald Kraak Award) and new outlets for those voices (see our feature […]

From Enkare Review to Expound: Meet the Young Creatives Running the Magazines of Our Future

African magazines that publish literature have come a long way since the 2000s when South Africa’s Chimurenga debuted under the editorial leadership of Ntone Edjabe. Chimurenga‘s success was quickly followed by Kenya’s Kwani? founded by Binyavanga Wainaina in 2003. In 2009, Emmanuel Iduma and Dami Ajayi kept up the momentum by setting up Nigeria’s Saraba. There is also Bakwa in Cameroon run […]

The Spirit and The Chi | by T.J. Benson | An African Story

The Chi of a young woman and the spirit of her late grandmother argued over who should take care of her. ‘There are many of you,’ asserted her Chi, ‘but there can only be one of me.’ ‘You didn’t give birth to her!’ screamed the dead old woman so that the night wind howled and […]