A Children’s Book About Fighting for Trees | Review of Ben Okri’s Every Leaf...
I love children’s books, particularly when they blend great storytelling and powerful messaging. Ben Okri’s latest offering, a children’s book illustrated by Nigerian-Italian artist Diana Ejaita, is a...
View Article“PEN Made Me Return to Gĩkũyũ”| Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Acceptance Speech at the...
Congratulations to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o on being awarded the 2022 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, one of the most prestigious honors conferred by PEN America. The award is a...
View ArticleA Story of Love and Polygamy | Review of Co-wives, Co-widows by Adrienne Yabouza
Co-wives and Co-widows is about polygamy, but not like you’ve seen it represented in African literature. With a few exceptions, stories about polygamy are often centered on pitting women against each...
View ArticleLingui: A Sacred Bond is a Moving African Story Critiquing Anti-Abortion Laws
Lingui: A Sacred Bond is a new film by Chadian filmmaker Mahamat-Saleh Haroun. It explores the underlying patriarchal logic behind anti-abortion laws. Set in the Chadian city of N’Djamena, it tells the...
View ArticleThe Nigerian Civil War and the Politics of Memory | Review of Uwem Akpan’s...
New York, My Village is Uwem Akpan’s debut novel and comes fourteen years after his first book’s groundbreaking success. Say You Are One of Them, which has become a modern classic, is a collection of...
View ArticleThe Many Delights of Animal Stories | Review of Glory by Noviolet Bulawayo
Glory by Noviolet Bulawayo is the story of Robert Mugabe’s fall from power told through animal characters. In a series of events that took many by surprise, one of Africa’s longest presidential tenures...
View ArticleThe African Speculative Fiction Society Announces the 2022 Nommo Awards...
The African Speculative Fiction Society announces the the finalists for the 2022 Nommo Awards. Named after a Dogon ancestral spirit, the awards were founded in 2016 and recognize “works of speculative...
View ArticleMillion-dollar Signee and Instant NYT Bestseller Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé...
After a very successful debut, British-Nigerian author Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé announces her second book. Titled Where Sleeping Girls Lie, the new book is a “YA mystery…pitched as Mean Girls with...
View ArticleMinna Salami is the Cover Star of Violet Simon’s Disruptors Issue
The Nigerian-Finish author Minna Salami, author of Sensuous Knowledge: A Radical Black Feminist Approach for Everyone, is the cover star for the London-based women-focused Media-tech company Violet...
View ArticleLanre Bakare Explores What it Means to be Black and British in Debut Book We...
The British-Nigerian author Lanre Bakare is set to publish his debut book. Titled We Were There: The Untold Black British Stories That Shaped Our Country, the book looks at the impact of Black British...
View Article“Though the colonial spaceship might have moved on, its shadows still loom...
We are honored to feature Rémy Ngamije as the first author in our month-long celebration of emerging African literary voices. Ngamije is a Rwandan-born Namibian writer and photographer. He is the...
View ArticleA Nigerian Intersex Teenager is the Heart of Papillon’s Debut | Review of An...
An Ordinary Wonder is the first Nigerian novel to center an intersex character. It tells the story of Otolorin, a girl who stands up against a world that refuses her humanity. “My name is Otolorin....
View ArticleA Feminist in Love | Interview with Mona Eltahawy
Mona Eltahawy met Robert Rutledge on Twitter on January 16, 2015, and the rest, as they say, is history. I recently stumbled across the fateful tweets that brought them together and found their love...
View ArticleExcerpt: Here Again Now by Okechukwu Nzelu
Ekene always heard the music first. Achike gave him something different every time. Some days, Ekene would open the front door and there would be Samuel Coleridge-Taylor before him, in Achike’s hands....
View ArticleMoroccan Novelist Laila Lalami Promoted to Distinguished Professor at the...
The Moroccan novelist Laila Lalami, author of acclaimed books like Conditional Citizens and The Moor’s Account, has been named a distinguished professor at the University of California, Riverside where...
View ArticleAkwaeke Emezi Talks New Books on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
Fresh off the hardback publication of their newest book You Made of Fool of Death With Your Beauty, Nigerian author Akwaeke Emezi was a guest on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Emezi discussed their...
View ArticleThe Political Necessity of Dreaming | Review of Out of the Sun by Esi Edugyan
Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling by Esi Edugyan is a collection of essays about art, literature, and film. It was aired on the radio as part of CBC Massey Lectures and published last year in...
View ArticleSomali-American Author Sofia Samatar to Debut Memoir on Growing Up Mennonite
Fans of Sofia Samatar are set to see a new side of the sci-fi author. Her memoir titled The White Mosque will be published by Catapult later in the year on October 25. Samatar retraces the steps of a...
View ArticleLove, Violence, and Everything In Between | Review of If An Egyptian Cannot...
If An Egyptian Cannot Speak English by Canadian Egyptian novelist Noor Naga is an experimental novel with a darkly romantic heart. It was published on April 12 by Graywolf Press and is part of the...
View ArticleThe Island Prize Q&A: Cameroonian Writer Joyce Odera Nwankwo Writing With...
Cameroonian writer Joyce Odera Nwankwo was shortlisted for The Island Prize for her fiction manuscript “Delightful Cage.” The recently launched The Island Prize is a manuscript prize awarded to African...
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