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Racist Passage From An 1896 Issue of Vogue Magazine
Why did I go snooping around the vogue digital archive in my school’s library? In my research on Tutuola, I kept coming across references to a Vogue mention of Tutuola’s novel, The Palmwine...
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Did Beyonce Rescue Adichie’s Americanah From Being a Sales Flop?
In Amazon’s top 10,000 best selling books list, Americanah ranked #861 the day before Beyonce sampled her TED talk on feminism in the song titled, “Flawless.” Eleven days later and after a 600 jump...
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An African Poet’s Guide To A Dead Year
The chances are that the year has ended with so much left unfulfilled. Not to mention all the mistakes made that cannot be unmade, moments lost that cannot be regained, hearts broken beyond repair....
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Writerly Love: Photos of African Writers Hanging Out
Teju Cole (Author of Open City) and Taiye Selasi (Ghana Must Go) I was looking through Taiye Selasi’s Twitter photos and found this one of her and Teju Cole. I couldn’t find out anything about where...
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“The Poet of Dust”— Testaments of Sand By Umar Sidi | A Brittle Paper Poet
What does a butterfly and a penis have to do with God, the universe, and the secrets of creation? Perhaps the Bible and quantum mechanics, Satan and Pythagoras, time and the tarantula aren’t such...
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“Home of the Reading Spa”— Photos from My Visit to the UK
The trip was a quick ten days spent mostly with family in London. Towards the end of our stay, my husband and I paired up with my sister and her husband on a short drive to the English countryside. We...
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African Literary Photo of the Week: Arrest That Book!
A small treat to get your Wednesday off to a fun start. Teju Cole posted this photo on Facebook of three men in police uniform holding his novel. Pretty badass. No?
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“African Homosexual Deamon”— Binyavanga’s Brief Treatise On Demonology
This is not an essay. A few days ago, Kenyan novelist, Wainaina Binyavanga, tweeted a set of remarks he called “a brief scientific history of deamons.” Aaron Bady of New Inquiry compiled and edited...
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12 Minutes of Cinematic Awesomeness! Vote for Daniel Effiong’s Crimson
Daniel Effiong’s psychological thriller, Crimson, has been shortlisted for the Afrinolly award. Effiong is part of a new generation of African filmmakers doing interesting things with the form. My...
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4 Things I Want For African Literature in 2014
A girl always wants things—things that aren’t necessarily limited to shoes and pretty dresses. In 2014, there are the things I want for African literature. 1. I want an African Fifty Shades of Grey:...
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After watching Crimson, I tried to figure out why it made such an impression on me. Each aspect of film that stayed with me was something I had never encountered in Nollywood. It dawned on my that what...
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Chris Abani Responds to 4 Unusual Questions About Writing
Chris Abani, the Nigerian novelist who brought us Graceland, has published a new novel. The Secret History of Las Vegas was officially released last week. My review copy of the crime thriller arrived...
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Yay! Half of a Yellow Sun Film in Theaters This Summer!
Biyi Bandele, who directed the Half of a Yellow Sun film adaptation, shared the wonderful news on Facebook today. If Deadline Hollywood is to be believed, Monterey Media Inc. has secured the rights...
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“The Enactment” by A. Oyebanji | A Brittle Paper Gay Love/Horror Story
Homosexuality is now illegal in Nigeria. The president signed it into law a few days ago. So yes, Ayodele Oyebanji’s story is timely and shocking because it is about the lynching of a gay man. Those...
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Adichie Shares Her Thoughts on Making Up and Other Girlie Matters
I remember “fighting” with Chika Unigwe on twitter over the merits of being a makeup girl versus a shoe-loving girl. She said something about making up being laborious and shoes being such divine...
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Maillu Accuses Ngugi of Intellectual Prostitution
David Maillu, a Kenyan genre fiction writer, calls Ngugi wa Thiongo out for living and working in America. Ngugi was forced to flee Kenya following his release from prison in the late 70s. {click here...
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Is This A Riddle, A Puzzle, Or A Legal Conundrum? | Tales By Tutuola
There was a man who had three wives, these three wives loved him so much that they were following him to wherever he wanted to go, and the husband loved them as well. One day, this man was going to...
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The Great God Heist — Review of Okey Ndibe’s Foreign Gods Inc.
Okey Ndibe at the Book Expo America in New York The gods in Okey Ndibe’s second novel, Foreign Gods Inc., are playthings for the rich and the famous. They undergo the indignity of being stolen or...
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The Horribly Violent True Story Behind Lauren Beukes’ Shinning Girls
Really sad story. The Shinning Girls is a gripping thriller about a time traveling serial killer who slit the guts open of his female victims. I read the novel last summer, and it certainly was...
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Taiye Selasi Is Thinking About Her Next Novel
Less than a year after her critically acclaimed novel, Ghana Must Go, hit the stands, the Afropolitan author seems to be gearing herself for round two. In a Facebook post titled, “Regarding second...
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