Search Results for: toni morrison

December 30, 2020

Toni Morrison’s Personal Collection of 1,200+ Books

They include books by and about Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Gayl Jones, Henry Dumas, James Baldwin, Mark Twain, the Obamas, and the Clintons.

Ernest Ogunyemi

July 18, 2023

Sarah Ladipo Manyika Is Curious About Culture Icons

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.

Otosirieze

February 13, 2023

“Friendship, to Me, Is What Saves One’s Sanity”: 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.

Sarah Ladipo Manyika

December 28, 2023

Our Top Stories of 2023

Otosirieze

November 28, 2023

The Overlapping Realisms of Eloghosa Osunde

In their debut novel-in-stories Vagabonds!, the Nigerian writer and visual artist pursues an alternate reality of their mind, taking on, among other subjects, social normalcy, gender, and queerness.

Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

August 5, 2023

“Creating a New Tradition in African Poetry”

20.35 Africa Vol. VI, edited by Nick Makoha and Safia Jama, is introduced by the series’ managing editor Precious Okpechi: “The poets understand that history evolves with us.”

20.35 Africa

February 11, 2023

The Anticipated Books of 2023

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.

Open Country Mag

January 17, 2023

“Black and Female”

The first essay collection from the PEN Pinter Prize winner and Booker Prize-nominated novelist: “That which is dead does not feel. We are not dead while we protest.”

Tsitsi Dangarembga

November 15, 2022

The Mystery of Sofia Samatar

The enigmatic American-Somali novelist, poet, and academic on her new memoir The White Mosque, literary hybridity, and the “dystopian hypocrisy” of social media.

Diriye Osman

July 23, 2022

In Conversation with Lan Samantha Chang, Director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop

The influential Chinese American novelist on running the famed program, new African writing, MFAs, literary genres, and her novel The Family Chao. “There is the possibility of creating the conversation that brings in as many voices as possible,” she said of the Workshop.

Otosirieze

April 9, 2022

Inside The Cheeky Natives, Letlhogonolo Mokgoroane & Alma-Nalisha Cele’s Archive of Intentionality

The lawyer and the doctor on podcasting, documenting South Africa’s Black voices, and getting African literature its own due.

Otosirieze

February 12, 2022

The Methods of Damon Galgut

How the South African naturalist, a prodigy, innovated major work on masculinity, race, memory, and time—and then, at the tip of his 40-year career, came the Booker Prize.

Otosirieze

January 11, 2022

On an Eastern Nigerian Campus, a New Literary Hotspot

In Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, writers are gathering to converse and perform at Eagle Nest Book Club. “It is likely we have created something that will outstay us in this place,” said the founders.

Uzoma Ihejirika

January 4, 2022

Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo Review—What Does It Mean for a Woman to Reclaim Herself?

A mixed-race woman’s search for her father in a fictional country.

Ernest Ogunyemi

July 19, 2021

“We Once Belonged to the Sea”

In the Somali writer’s debut novel, a tense dynamic between a gifted reclusive lesbian artist and her punk hijabi protégé.

Diriye Osman

July 4, 2021

The Worldly Ways of Teju Cole

The great writer, street photographer, and art historian’s enquiries lured him onto a solo path in contemporary literature—a completely new terrain for an African writer. Ten years after his debut novel, Open City, he still seeks artistic freedom.

Otosirieze

June 21, 2021

Kwame Dawes & Boris Boubacar Diop Are Finalists for Neustadt International Prize for Literature

The $50,000 award, given by the University of Oklahoma-based World Literature Today, has historically predicted future Nobel Prize in Literature winners.

Otosirieze

April 2, 2021

TJ Benson Holds History and Hope

Thirteen years after he started it, his debut novel The Madhouse finally arrives. This chronicle of the ‘90s, set in northern Nigeria, broadens the familiar for the 29-year-old.

Ernest Ogunyemi

December 30, 2020

How Tsitsi Dangarembga, with Her Trilogy of Zimbabwe, Overcame

Her debut novel, Nervous Conditions, is a modern classic, and after The Book of Not, she concludes Tambu’s story with the Booker Prize-shortlisted This Mournable Body. But the literary and film icon never planned for these to take almost four decades.

Otosirieze

December 26, 2020

Nigerian Literature Needed Editors. Two Women Stepped in To Groom Them.

With Society of Book and Magazine Editors of Nigeria (SBMEN), two publishers, Anwuli Ojogwu of Narrative Landscape and Enajite Efemuaye, formerly of Kachifo, are laying foundation for the future.

Otosirieze

December 30, 2020

Toni Morrison’s Personal Collection of 1,200+ Books

They include books by and about Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Gayl Jones, Henry Dumas, James Baldwin, Mark Twain, the Obamas, and the Clintons.

Ernest Ogunyemi

July 18, 2023

Sarah Ladipo Manyika Is Curious About Culture Icons

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.

Otosirieze

February 13, 2023

“Friendship, to Me, Is What Saves One’s Sanity”: 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.

Sarah Ladipo Manyika

December 28, 2023

Our Top Stories of 2023

Otosirieze

November 28, 2023

The Overlapping Realisms of Eloghosa Osunde

In their debut novel-in-stories Vagabonds!, the Nigerian writer and visual artist pursues an alternate reality of their mind, taking on, among other subjects, social normalcy, gender, and queerness.

Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

August 5, 2023

“Creating a New Tradition in African Poetry”

20.35 Africa Vol. VI, edited by Nick Makoha and Safia Jama, is introduced by the series’ managing editor Precious Okpechi: “The poets understand that history evolves with us.”

20.35 Africa

February 11, 2023

The Anticipated Books of 2023

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.

Open Country Mag

January 17, 2023

“Black and Female”

The first essay collection from the PEN Pinter Prize winner and Booker Prize-nominated novelist: “That which is dead does not feel. We are not dead while we protest.”

Tsitsi Dangarembga

November 15, 2022

The Mystery of Sofia Samatar

The enigmatic American-Somali novelist, poet, and academic on her new memoir The White Mosque, literary hybridity, and the “dystopian hypocrisy” of social media.

Diriye Osman

July 23, 2022

In Conversation with Lan Samantha Chang, Director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop

The influential Chinese American novelist on running the famed program, new African writing, MFAs, literary genres, and her novel The Family Chao. “There is the possibility of creating the conversation that brings in as many voices as possible,” she said of the Workshop.

Otosirieze

April 9, 2022

Inside The Cheeky Natives, Letlhogonolo Mokgoroane & Alma-Nalisha Cele’s Archive of Intentionality

The lawyer and the doctor on podcasting, documenting South Africa’s Black voices, and getting African literature its own due.

Otosirieze

February 12, 2022

The Methods of Damon Galgut

How the South African naturalist, a prodigy, innovated major work on masculinity, race, memory, and time—and then, at the tip of his 40-year career, came the Booker Prize.

Otosirieze

January 11, 2022

On an Eastern Nigerian Campus, a New Literary Hotspot

In Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, writers are gathering to converse and perform at Eagle Nest Book Club. “It is likely we have created something that will outstay us in this place,” said the founders.

Uzoma Ihejirika

January 4, 2022

Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo Review—What Does It Mean for a Woman to Reclaim Herself?

A mixed-race woman’s search for her father in a fictional country.

Ernest Ogunyemi

July 19, 2021

“We Once Belonged to the Sea”

In the Somali writer’s debut novel, a tense dynamic between a gifted reclusive lesbian artist and her punk hijabi protégé.

Diriye Osman

July 4, 2021

The Worldly Ways of Teju Cole

The great writer, street photographer, and art historian’s enquiries lured him onto a solo path in contemporary literature—a completely new terrain for an African writer. Ten years after his debut novel, Open City, he still seeks artistic freedom.

Otosirieze

June 21, 2021

Kwame Dawes & Boris Boubacar Diop Are Finalists for Neustadt International Prize for Literature

The $50,000 award, given by the University of Oklahoma-based World Literature Today, has historically predicted future Nobel Prize in Literature winners.

Otosirieze

April 2, 2021

TJ Benson Holds History and Hope

Thirteen years after he started it, his debut novel The Madhouse finally arrives. This chronicle of the ‘90s, set in northern Nigeria, broadens the familiar for the 29-year-old.

Ernest Ogunyemi

December 30, 2020

How Tsitsi Dangarembga, with Her Trilogy of Zimbabwe, Overcame

Her debut novel, Nervous Conditions, is a modern classic, and after The Book of Not, she concludes Tambu’s story with the Booker Prize-shortlisted This Mournable Body. But the literary and film icon never planned for these to take almost four decades.

Otosirieze

December 26, 2020

Nigerian Literature Needed Editors. Two Women Stepped in To Groom Them.

With Society of Book and Magazine Editors of Nigeria (SBMEN), two publishers, Anwuli Ojogwu of Narrative Landscape and Enajite Efemuaye, formerly of Kachifo, are laying foundation for the future.

Otosirieze