Otosirieze for Open Country Mag.

Otosirieze

Founder & Editor

Otosirieze, a writer, culture journalist, curator, and media consultant, is the founder and editor of Open Country Mag. For the magazine, he has written longform features and Profiles of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Rita Dominic, Teju Cole, Damon Galgut, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and Chidi Mokeme; curates The Next Generation, a series of special issues highlighting rising literary voices; and co-conceptualized Nigeria’s first formal bestseller list, with bookstore Rovingheights. He was editor of Folio Nigeria, then CNN’s exclusive media affiliate in Africa, before its relaunch on Open Country Mag, and was briefly Business/Creative Head of its planned portfolio company Folio Digital Media. There, he wrote over a hundred pieces on the Nigerian culture scene, covering innovation in over 20 fields, including film, art, music, tech, sports, cuisine, fashion, journalism, sculpture, beauty, health, and activism. He is chair of The Gerald Kraak Prize, a South African initiative for storytelling about gender, sexuality, and social justice, and was a judge for The Morland Scholarship, a British grant for African writers. He has led or joined editorial teams at a host of platforms and projects in African literature, including at 14, the pioneering LGBTQ collective. His fiction has appeared in The Threepenny Review and Transition. He has an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and an MA in African Studies and BA in English/History from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He taught English at Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu. In 2019, he received the inaugural The Future Awards Africa Prize for Literature. In 2020, he was named among “The 100 Most Influential Young Nigerians” by Avance Media. He has twice appeared on With Chude‘s list of “The 150 Most Interesting Nigerians in Culture.” Twitter & Instagram: @otosirieze. Website: otosirieze.com.

All Works

September 18, 2023

The clashes are instant in this interesting, fashionable take on Africa’s largest city, yet the show’s Season 1 is unable to stamp its own identity or manufacture original conflicts.

August 20, 2023

As warring sister chefs, Funke Akindele and Mercy Johnson, aided by a tight script, torch each other in an entertaining, and ultimately touching, tale that became Nollywood’s highest-grossing film of all-time.

August 15, 2023

The $6,000 initiative, sponsored by Africa No Filter, will fund and support five projects representing West, East, and Southern Africa: a musical and art exhibition, 3D fashion and storytelling, a mixed media project on Nok terracotta, a podcast on LGBTQI+ issues, and a documentary on Nollywood.

July 18, 2023

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.

June 27, 2023

A long career playing playboys and villains, including a soldier in ’76 and real-life robber Monday Osunbor, set him apart as an intriguing supporting act. But after a moment of personal adversity, he dug deep and returned in Shanty Town — a domineering leading turn unlike any other we have seen in Nollywood.

June 13, 2023

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.

May 25, 2023

A strong ensemble including Nse Ikpe-Etim and Nancy Isime, playing off a domineering leading performance by Chidi Mokeme, enhances Netflix’s intense limited series. But its grittiness can veer, avoidably and frustratingly, into violence porn.

May 24, 2023

Chidi Mokeme and Nse Ikpe-Etim were snubbed in a near shut-out of Netflix series Shanty Town, with Tobi Bakre scooping a shock Best Drama Actor victory as Brotherhood swept its categories. Perennial Best Comedy Actress champ Funke Akindele also lost for the first time in five years while Anikulapo won Best Overall Movie.

September 18, 2023

The clashes are instant in this interesting, fashionable take on Africa’s largest city, yet the show’s Season 1 is unable to stamp its own identity or manufacture original conflicts.

August 20, 2023

As warring sister chefs, Funke Akindele and Mercy Johnson, aided by a tight script, torch each other in an entertaining, and ultimately touching, tale that became Nollywood’s highest-grossing film of all-time.

August 15, 2023

The $6,000 initiative, sponsored by Africa No Filter, will fund and support five projects representing West, East, and Southern Africa: a musical and art exhibition, 3D fashion and storytelling, a mixed media project on Nok terracotta, a podcast on LGBTQI+ issues, and a documentary on Nollywood.

July 18, 2023

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.

June 27, 2023

A long career playing playboys and villains, including a soldier in ’76 and real-life robber Monday Osunbor, set him apart as an intriguing supporting act. But after a moment of personal adversity, he dug deep and returned in Shanty Town — a domineering leading turn unlike any other we have seen in Nollywood.

June 13, 2023

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.

May 25, 2023

A strong ensemble including Nse Ikpe-Etim and Nancy Isime, playing off a domineering leading performance by Chidi Mokeme, enhances Netflix’s intense limited series. But its grittiness can veer, avoidably and frustratingly, into violence porn.

May 24, 2023

Chidi Mokeme and Nse Ikpe-Etim were snubbed in a near shut-out of Netflix series Shanty Town, with Tobi Bakre scooping a shock Best Drama Actor victory as Brotherhood swept its categories. Perennial Best Comedy Actress champ Funke Akindele also lost for the first time in five years while Anikulapo won Best Overall Movie.

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