Search Results for: Wole Soyinka

In this excerpt from Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s Between Starshine and Clay, the Nobel laureate and his friend Henry Louis Gates, Jr. remember another friend: the late Toni Morrison.

“Only one universal ideology answers human cruelties, the excesses of power, bigotries, social inequalities and alienation: Literature,” wrote Africa’s first Nobel laureate in literature, who turned 87 this week.

The event is part of the Museum of the African Diaspora’s “Conversations Across the Diaspora” series.

Centred on his former Ibadan residence, family memories of a young militant Wole Soyinka casts strange light on his increasingly contentious legacy as an activist.

Headlined by a quartet of feted veteran voices in Wole Soyinka, Aminatta Forna, Jennifer Makumbi, and Chris Abani, NYU Accra’s 30-author symposium is a convergence of inspiration. “We have to tell our own story,” said convener and school director Chike Frankie Edozien.

In Between Starshine and Clay, the novelist interviews Toni Morrison, Michelle Obama, and Wole Soyinka, among other major Black figures in the arts and politics. “One of the things that was the most surprising was the actual extent to which they forged their own path,” she said.

He leaves behind a solid legacy, including the movie Fifty, the Netflix series Blood Sisters, a Fela Kuti documentary, and adaptations of work by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Wole Soyinka.

Edited by Adekeye Adebajo, it covers 36 major Pan-African figures including Frantz Fanon, Steve Biko, Maya Angelou, Buchi Emecheta, Miriam Makeba, Wole Soyinka, Bob Marley, and Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.

From Chigozie Obioma, Teju Cole, and Akwaeke Emezi to Safia Elhillo, Olumide Popoola, and Tares Oburumu: the anticipated books of 2024.

From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Teju Cole, and Leila Aboulela to DK Nnuro, Momtaza Mehri, and Fatin Abbas: the notable books of 2023 by Africans.

The manuscript in progress has been acquired by Scribner in the US and W&N in the UK.

How to Write About Africa gathers vivid, powerful essays and fiction by the late Kenyan icon. Its editor Achal Prabhala talks compiling it, a second posthumous book, and an uncompleted novel. “Much is made of what he did for other writers, but it was his own writing that did it for me,” he said.

As the first published African female playwright and Ghana’s former Minister of Education, the author of No Sweetness Here and Our Sister Killjoy was admired by Chimamanda Adichie, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and popstar Burna Boy. “The decay of Africa’s social, political, and economic systems is directly related to the complete marginalization of women,” she once said.

Nearly All the Men in Lagos Are Mad, the actress’ debut collection of stories, sold over 2,200 copies, assuring it the No. 1 spot on The Rovingheights Bestseller List: Presented with Open Country Mag. So why do these stories of failing romance connect so widely?

Announcing the first formal bestseller list in Nigerian literature, covering fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children’s books, and self-published titles, with an overall Top 100.

From Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ben Okri, and Leila Aboulela, to Chigozie Obioma, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, and Ayobami Adebayo, here are the over 100 books expected to lead the literary conversation this year.