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, and Cardinal Arinze; curates The Next Generation, a series of special issues highlighting rising literary voices; co-conceptualized Nigeria’s first formal bestseller list, with bookstore Rovingheights; and runs a Curatorial Fellowship, funded by Africa No Filter, mentoring creatives in art, fashion, music, and media. 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 was chair of The Gerald Kraak Prize, a South African initiative for storytelling about gender, sexuality, and social justice, and edited its fourth anthology The Beautyful Ones Have Just Been Born. He 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 given guest lectures at Dartmouth College and at Grinnell College. He has an MA in African Studies and a BA in English/History from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was Adjunct Assistant Professor of Creative Writing. 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 appeared on With Chude‘s list of “The 150 Most Interesting Nigerians in Culture.” Twitter & Instagram: @otosirieze. Website: otosirieze.com.

All Works

September 27, 2024

Staged by the Malawian artist Mirriam Francesca Nkosi, with sponsorship by Africa No Filter, it “focused on preserving, celebrating, and documenting these native plants and the traditional knowledge associated with them.”

September 20, 2024

Hosted by the East African activist Name Redacted, with sponsorship by Africa No Filter, “conversations like these provide a counter-narrative to predominant Western narratives of ‘coming out.'”

August 21, 2024

How a young priest from Onitsha, Nigeria, became the highest-ranking African and Black official of the Roman Catholic Church, and a storied icon of modern apostolicism.

August 19, 2024

At 91, the Catholic prelate is the most accomplished living African and Black religious minister, our oldest cover star, and our first outside literature and film.

August 2, 2024

Created by the Nigerian artists Vetum Galadima and Amaka Obioma, with sponsorship by Africa No Filter, it “combines museum technology and art direction to create a perspective for art preservation.”

August 2, 2024

Crafted by the Nigerian designer Izuchukwu Udokwu, with sponsorship by Africa No Filter, it weaves fashion, music, and poetry to show that “you don’t have to create physical pieces that would probably end up in the waste bin and contribute to the wastes in our environment.”

June 3, 2024

The Nigerian poet and editor of Agbowo’s “searing” The Years of Blood has “vivid, unsettling imagery drawing on Yoruba cosmology and folklore.” It is forthcoming in Fall 2025.

February 2, 2024

In a storied year for Nigerian cinema, our inaugural list prioritizes the realization of narrative, and these features stand out.

January 16, 2024

In a year of ensembles, in which it fell on collective performances to elevate stories, these actors stood out — among the films and TV series we saw.

September 27, 2024

Staged by the Malawian artist Mirriam Francesca Nkosi, with sponsorship by Africa No Filter, it “focused on preserving, celebrating, and documenting these native plants and the traditional knowledge associated with them.”

September 20, 2024

Hosted by the East African activist Name Redacted, with sponsorship by Africa No Filter, “conversations like these provide a counter-narrative to predominant Western narratives of ‘coming out.'”

August 21, 2024

How a young priest from Onitsha, Nigeria, became the highest-ranking African and Black official of the Roman Catholic Church, and a storied icon of modern apostolicism.

August 19, 2024

At 91, the Catholic prelate is the most accomplished living African and Black religious minister, our oldest cover star, and our first outside literature and film.

August 2, 2024

Created by the Nigerian artists Vetum Galadima and Amaka Obioma, with sponsorship by Africa No Filter, it “combines museum technology and art direction to create a perspective for art preservation.”

August 2, 2024

Crafted by the Nigerian designer Izuchukwu Udokwu, with sponsorship by Africa No Filter, it weaves fashion, music, and poetry to show that “you don’t have to create physical pieces that would probably end up in the waste bin and contribute to the wastes in our environment.”

June 3, 2024

The Nigerian poet and editor of Agbowo’s “searing” The Years of Blood has “vivid, unsettling imagery drawing on Yoruba cosmology and folklore.” It is forthcoming in Fall 2025.

February 2, 2024

In a storied year for Nigerian cinema, our inaugural list prioritizes the realization of narrative, and these features stand out.

“An ambitious new magazine committed to African literature”

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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