The Best Friend Who Disappeared 10 Years Ago: Behind These Four Walls By...
Hello Brittle Paperians. Here is another weekly reminder to check in on your TBR list and see what might be missing. This week, we’re spotlighting Behind These Four Walls by the award-winning Ghanaian...
View ArticleA Feminist Dictionary of Mothering | Review of Grace by Chika Unigwe
Chika Unigwe’s novel titled Grace is about a midwife named Grace. And yes, her name hovers uncomfortably close to the word disgrace because the novel is about how easily grace slips into disgrace when...
View Article13 Major Trends in African Publishing and Literary Culture in 2025
Year-end lists carry two kinds of information. There is what the books say, and then there is what the list signals about the ecosystem that produced them. Although Brittle Paper’s 100 Notable Books of...
View Article9 Books to Introduce You to African Island Nation Literature
Africa is not just one big landmass. Africa has islands. And they have incredible literary traditions that most English-language readers barely hear about. If you’ve ever wondered where to start with...
View ArticleFrom the Somali Desert to the Masjid: 3 New African Picture Books Celebrating...
We are opening the year with three books for our youngest readers. Sope Martins’s Hairstory, Aya Khalil’s Ramadan for Everyone, and Shugri Salh’s Suuban’s First Day, published this January, come from...
View ArticleWhen the Freedom Fighter Is Your Mother: We Inherit the Fire by Kagiso Lesego...
Hello Brittle Paperians. Happy New Year! This is our weekly reminder to check in on your TBR list and see what might be missing. This week, we’re spotlighting We Inherit the Fire by Kagiso Lesego...
View ArticleFrom Space Travel to Black Time: African Nonfiction That Explains the World
The New Year is always a good excuse to loosen your reading habits and take up books that teach you something unexpected. We’ve put together a list of African books that will give you the 411 on...
View ArticleAnnouncing the 100 Notable African Books of 2025
We are thrilled to announced that Brittle Paper’s 100 Notable African Books of the Year List is out. Go HERE to see the beautiful spread. Lists can feel like endings, but this one is a chance to step...
View ArticleSharjah Diaries: Three Days Among Publishers
I recently attended the publishers conference in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. It was an energizing experience, and it opened my eyes to parts of the publishing world that many readers and...
View ArticleAfrican Fashion at the Booker Prize: Troy Onyango Shares the Story Behind His...
The Booker Prize ceremony just wrapped, and it delivered plenty to talk about. The big win went to David Szalay for Flesh, but the night carried a strong African presence. Nigerian novelist Ayobami...
View ArticleMoroccan-American Laila Lalami Shares Fall Tour Dates for The Dream Hotel
Laila Lalami just announced her fall book tour on Instagram, inviting readers to come say hello: “Fall events! Dear friends and fellow readers, please mark your calendars and come on out to say hello....
View ArticleSierra Leonean Literary Platform Poda-Poda Stories Opens Submissions for...
Poda-Poda Stories has opened submissions for its upcoming Mundanity issue, set for publication in December 2025. Writers and artists are invited to creatively explore the theme of “mundanity” across...
View ArticlePeople Lie About Reading These 10 African Books: Here’s Why
Let’s be real, some books sit on our shelves more than they get read. You want to say you’ve read them. Maybe you’ve even said so at a dinner party or on a date. But in reality, you’re still stuck...
View ArticleMai Sennaar’s They Dream in Gold Turns a Novel Into a Listening Experience
They Dream in Gold by Mai Sennaar is a novel about sound. Music runs through the story. The two main characters, Bonnie and Mansour, are bound to music in different ways. Bonnie is a Black American...
View Article5 New African Middle-Grade Books Your Kids Will Love
This week, we’re sharing five new African books for the young readers in your life. These middle‑grade stories explore everyday and fantastical worlds. Lara T. Kareem’s Àànú Ifẹ́ is a tender story...
View ArticleAre US/UK Publishers Taking Over Africa’s Richest Literary Prize?
The Nigeria Prize for Literature is one of Africa’s richest literary prizes, with a $100,000 purse. This year’s longlist includes titles from prominent international publishers, with a significant...
View Article25 Years Later, This Shona Masterpiece Is Coming to English Readers | The Mad...
One of Zimbabwe’s most iconic novels is coming to English-language readers. Mapenzi is the Shona-language classic by Zimbabwean academic Ignatius T. Mabasa and has been translated into English as The...
View ArticleMasobe Books to Publish New EndSARS Anthology Edited by Chibueze Darlington...
On October 2, Brittle Paper will release Who Gave the Order, a new collection of essays remembering the EndSARS protests. The timing for the publication is not fortuitous. It is one day after Nigeria’s...
View ArticleA Tribute to Ngugi wa Thiong’o by James Ogude
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the Kenyan playwright, novelist and thinker, who passed on 28 May 2025, has left a huge intellectual gap in Africa’s cultural and political landscape. Instead of mourning him, I have...
View ArticleBrittle Paper Curates Three Panels for the Schomburg Centennial Festival in...
We’re thrilled to share that Brittle Paper has curated a series of literary panels for this year’s Schomburg Center Literary Festival, taking place on Saturday, June 14 in Harlem. This is one of the...
View Article
