Nigeria

The Nigerian poet did not necessarily plan for his first full-length collection, The Years of Blood, to confront his boyhood in a stark way. But the layers of memory and spirituality it unpeels go back to the Yoruba verses of his direct ancestors.

Before his award-winning work in big dramas Oloibiri, Shanty Town, The Milkmaid, and Jagun Jagun, Hakeem “Effects” Onilogbo, the most decorated makeup artist in the industry, wanted to be an actor. Two decades later, he expresses his craft with the ambition of one.

Reading Chigozie Obioma, Biafra, and Igbo cosmology, a philosopher reflects on “the shrunken role of Nigerian writers today” and their “inability to perceive the shifting of the tectonic plates.” Arguing that the Achebean tradition has created novelists who “wish to be free of the responsibility of the oracle but ache to inherit that reverence,” it is a decrial of the metaphysical gap in our realist fiction, and a rallying cry for mythos and “oracular insight.”

Founded by Chukwuka Odigbo and Dawn Chinagorom-Abiakalam, and judged by Adachioma Ezeano and Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo, the ₦2.95 million ($2,165) Sabi Prize for Critical Reading and Writing “hopes to inspire young Nigerians everywhere.” Open Country Mag has published the winning essays.

Up to 220 Nigerian senior secondary school students entered for the inaugural Sabi Prize, worth ₦2.95 million ($2,165). Their task? To analyze a chapter from Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood. Read the top three essays, judged by Adachioma Ezeano, winner of the O. Henry Prize, and Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo, author of The Tiny Things are Heavier.

The Gbagyi are an ethnic minority in Nigeria’s vastly diverse Northern Central region, with scant representation in mainstream arts and literature. With Before the Mango Ripens, a historical novel set during a 1970s Christian tussle, an emigrant daughter shares an untold chapter.

Behind Funke Akindele’s 7.2-billion-naira box office dominance is Valentine Chukwuma, her top editor at Scene One Productions. In an industry that overlooks underdog talents, the 31-year-old, who once made skits to escape poverty, has cut five of its six most profitable films of all-time.

Releasing the fourth annual compilation of the only bestseller list in Nigerian literature: comprising the Top 100 books of the year, alongside the Top 50 in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, self-published, and children’s books.

Since the 1950s, the Nobel laureate has worked in rebellion, carving out a complex, fecund torque of an oeuvre. But as his plays of mythic vigor and Yoruba impulse revitalized Anglophone theatre, raising an art form to ritualistic heights, his force of personality kept him in the political arena, a close witness of an African affliction. Few artists have lived like him. Yet at 91, carrying the mantle of “greatest living writer,” he has one more great battle on his hands — with generations who once deified him.

To tell their stories, the author of Yahoo! Yahoo! imitates his characters. If he writes about scammers, he wants readers to suspect him of scamming. Why should Nigerian literature not be as relatable as its music? And why, as director of the Puebla International Literature Festival, should he not want writers to take an ethical stand?

As a salesman of youth power, Africa’s most influential millennial curator reinvented himself from new media maven to political power player, and, now, a wellness advocate. Each iteration transformed culture. One left him scarred.

For decades, Nigerians looked to writers for moral authority. As the country deteriorates further, and more writers become “hooker intellectuals,” the short story writer, attorney, and digital publishing pioneer hopes to maintain his courage.

The philosophical art world of Chiagoziem Nneamaka Orji.

The Abebi Award in Afro-Nonfiction is “not just about beautiful sentences and essays” but also “a world where girls and women are equipped and empowered.” Founder Mofiyinfoluwa O. and 2024 Award winner and runner-up Mariam Tijani and Ifeoluwa Ajike Williams reflect on courage, contemplative exploration, and catharsis.