Subscribe
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

Staff Writer

Orji Victor Ebubechukwu writes features and reviews for Open Country Mag. His works have appeared in Iskanchi Magazine, BreakBread Literary Magazine, The Adirondack Review, Afritondo Magazine, African Writers Magazine, The Shallow Tales Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Connect with him on Twitter: @BubeOrji.

All Works

June 6, 2025

32 Books in 63 Years: Your Guide to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Body of Work

The late great Kenyan writer produced full-length work in all genres except poetry, capturing the tensions between colonizer and colonized, orality and literacy, and tradition and modernity.
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

May 30, 2025

The Lives and Deaths of Véronique Bangoura by Tierno Monénembo, Reviewed: Mystery Guinean Girl on the Run, from Conakry to Paris

In the 78-year-old Guinean author’s 14th novel, translated by Ryan Chamberlain, names are history and memory is survival.
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

May 29, 2025

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Great Kenyan Writer Who Centred African Languages, Dies at 87

The novelist, playwright, and theorist left a blistering legacy. He was, with Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, regarded as part of an unofficial trinity: the continent’s greatest pioneering writers.
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

May 27, 2025

Making Humane and Horror Shorts

As founder of the Africa International Horror Film Festival (AIHFF), the first such platform in West Africa and second in the continent, Nneoha Ann Aligwe believes that the genre “allows us to confront” the “darkness within us.” And courage matters to her, hence her documentary Born Different.
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

May 19, 2025

In His Short Films, the Drama Is in the Mundane

Guided by his “Igbo awakening,” Dika Ofoma sets his brief features — God’s Wife, A Quiet Monday, and A Japa Tale, among them — in southeastern Nigeria, with characters, often women, whose day-to-day lives, he argues, are “interesting enough.”
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

May 13, 2025

She Got Her Start by Asking. Now She Runs Her Own Shows.

Not wanting to be boxed in, Fatima Binta Gimsay moves from television to short films. Her work includes Fine Girls, Omozi, and Ijo. “The challenge on the indie side of things will always be money,” she said.
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

March 27, 2025

Historical Dramas Lisabi: The Uprising, Seven Doors, and House of Ga’a Dominate AMVCAs 2025 Nominations

Lisabi: The Uprising, Seven Doors, and House of Ga’a lead with ten nominations. Composer Tolu Obanro is also nominated.
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

February 15, 2025

Anticipated Books of 2025

From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Laila Lalami, and Goretti Kyomuhendo to Tochi Eze, Chisom Okafor, Itiola Jones, and Adedayo Agarau: the anticipated books of 2025.
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

February 5, 2025

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Is on the Host Committee for the MET Gala 2025

Her selection — with LeBron James, Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky, Pharrell Williams, and Anna Wintour as chairs — coincides with the rollout of her forthcoming fourth novel Dream Count.
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

January 9, 2025

In the Lives of Three Couples, a Vision for Queer Love

The documentary This Is Love shows Nigerians who “live beautiful love stories in a place where the love they share is taboo.” After a Best LGBT Feature win at Brazil’s Bahia Independent Cinema Festival, director and co-producer Victor Ugoo knows that “distribution seems to be the hardest part of filmmaking.”
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

June 6, 2025

32 Books in 63 Years: Your Guide to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Body of Work

The late great Kenyan writer produced full-length work in all genres except poetry, capturing the tensions between colonizer and colonized, orality and literacy, and tradition and modernity.
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

May 30, 2025

The Lives and Deaths of Véronique Bangoura by Tierno Monénembo, Reviewed: Mystery Guinean Girl on the Run, from Conakry to Paris

In the 78-year-old Guinean author’s 14th novel, translated by Ryan Chamberlain, names are history and memory is survival.
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

May 29, 2025

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Great Kenyan Writer Who Centred African Languages, Dies at 87

The novelist, playwright, and theorist left a blistering legacy. He was, with Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, regarded as part of an unofficial trinity: the continent’s greatest pioneering writers.
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

May 27, 2025

Making Humane and Horror Shorts

As founder of the Africa International Horror Film Festival (AIHFF), the first such platform in West Africa and second in the continent, Nneoha Ann Aligwe believes that the genre “allows us to confront” the “darkness within us.” And courage matters to her, hence her documentary Born Different.
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

May 19, 2025

In His Short Films, the Drama Is in the Mundane

Guided by his “Igbo awakening,” Dika Ofoma sets his brief features — God’s Wife, A Quiet Monday, and A Japa Tale, among them — in southeastern Nigeria, with characters, often women, whose day-to-day lives, he argues, are “interesting enough.”
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

May 13, 2025

She Got Her Start by Asking. Now She Runs Her Own Shows.

Not wanting to be boxed in, Fatima Binta Gimsay moves from television to short films. Her work includes Fine Girls, Omozi, and Ijo. “The challenge on the indie side of things will always be money,” she said.
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

March 27, 2025

Historical Dramas Lisabi: The Uprising, Seven Doors, and House of Ga’a Dominate AMVCAs 2025 Nominations

Lisabi: The Uprising, Seven Doors, and House of Ga’a lead with ten nominations. Composer Tolu Obanro is also nominated.
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

February 15, 2025

Anticipated Books of 2025

From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Laila Lalami, and Goretti Kyomuhendo to Tochi Eze, Chisom Okafor, Itiola Jones, and Adedayo Agarau: the anticipated books of 2025.
Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

“An ambitious new magazine committed to African literature”

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Join 25,000+ subscribers to essential, in-depth stories in African literature, Nigerian film, & culture: inspiring Profiles, incisive reviews, thought-provoking features & conversations that happen nowhere else. It's premium access to the visions of changemakers, from icons to emerging voices. Plus key industry stories from Folio Nigeria by CNN.

We respect your privacy and will never send you Spam or sell your email.

NO, I DON'T CARE ABOUT AFRICAN WHATEVER.

Top