Features

November 18, 2025

“Little Did We Know”: How uHlanga Press Disrupted South African Poetry

Nick Mulgrew started a publishing outfit to bring “dismissed or ignored” voices to print. Ten years later, it has landed notable prizes, invested in indigenous languages, and grown a dedicated readership.

Iheoma Uzomba

November 5, 2025

Chude Jideonwo Is on the November 2025 Cover of Open Country Mag

At 40, the culture curator, co-founder of The Future Awards Africa, and host of #WithChude is the youngest to appear on our cover.

Otosirieze

November 3, 2025

In Great Grief, Mubanga Kalimamukwento Saw Her Country

As a child, no one told the writer and attorney how her family died. She has since compressed her resilience into acclaimed novels, nonfiction, poetry, and Ubwali, a magazine shaping Zambian literature.

Paula Willie-Okafor

October 31, 2025

In a Time of Fire, Chuma Nwokolo Protects His Purpose

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.

Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

September 19, 2025

Iheoma Uzomba Wins Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award for Poetry

The Nigerian poet, a staff writer at Open Country Mag, will receive $1,500 for three poems in English and in Pidgin. It is the renowned magazine’s top honor.

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

August 26, 2025

An Igbo Painter Awakens the Native Imagination

The philosophical art world of Chiagoziem Nneamaka Orji.

Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

August 25, 2025

“Shatter That Silence”: A Nonfiction Prize Honours Stories of Women’s Lives

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.

Ada Nnadi

July 8, 2025

Taiwo Egunjobi’s Cinema of the Trapped

In grave dramas of styled minimalism, the Ibadan-born director constructs harsh worlds of dangerous dreams, in which characters are caught up in greed and violence.

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

June 24, 2025

His Style Is Symbolist: “Afro Contemporary Symbolism”

Grief led Uwana Anthony to make his short film Everything Must End. His style is “a movement and a cause for change in our approach to pursuing knowledge.”

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

May 27, 2025

She Makes 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

February 4, 2025

JK Anowe, a Confessional Poet, Confronts Himself

Working from fragments, the reclusive poet led a wave of young Nigerian voices situating the self and mental states. Now his “schizo poetry” is evolving, drawing from Igbo cosmology.

Iheoma Uzomba

January 28, 2025

Translating Under Empire

As Series Editors of Global Black Writers in Translation, Vanessa K. Valdés, Anette Joseph-Gabriel, and Nathan H. Dize know that “Black literature is the least translated.” In a mostly white field, the long histories of Afro-diasporic, Caribbean, Spanish, French, and Portuguese erasures inform their work.

Otosirieze

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

December 9, 2024

A Small Indie Producer Bets on Social Justice Cinema

Godwin Harrison’s “advocacy-led” HUG Media Concept is “about using cinema to address issues.” His new film Ima’mi is based on his life as an Efik prince who was outed as gay.

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

December 6, 2024

The Prodigious Arrival of Arinze Ifeakandu

In an era of unearned hype, the novelistic short stories of God’s Children Are Little Broken Things established him as a major talent, earning him the Dylan Thomas Prize. But as potent as fiction is in combating queer erasure, he believes in the supplement of living openly.

Paula Willie-Okafor

December 5, 2024

With the S16 Film Festival, an Arthouse Collective Locks Its Focus

A trio of young filmmakers banded together as the Surreal16 Collective, to resist Nollywood clichés. At their festival, Michael Omonua, C.J. “Fiery” Obasi, and Abba T. Makama curate a haven for unorthodox filmmakers.

Michael Aromolaran

November 25, 2024

A Navy Pilot Pivoted to Writing, Spurred by Surrealists

While flying military helicopters, Umar Abubakar Sidi wrote the two top-selling poetry books in Nigeria. Now he has a novel. One day, he will write about military life: “It is a reality I cannot escape.”

Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

November 15, 2024

Abi Daré Claims Her Space

The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl with the Louding Voice and And So I Roar on her writing process.

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

November 18, 2025

“Little Did We Know”: How uHlanga Press Disrupted South African Poetry

Nick Mulgrew started a publishing outfit to bring “dismissed or ignored” voices to print. Ten years later, it has landed notable prizes, invested in indigenous languages, and grown a dedicated readership.

Iheoma Uzomba

November 5, 2025

Chude Jideonwo Is on the November 2025 Cover of Open Country Mag

At 40, the culture curator, co-founder of The Future Awards Africa, and host of #WithChude is the youngest to appear on our cover.

Otosirieze

November 3, 2025

In Great Grief, Mubanga Kalimamukwento Saw Her Country

As a child, no one told the writer and attorney how her family died. She has since compressed her resilience into acclaimed novels, nonfiction, poetry, and Ubwali, a magazine shaping Zambian literature.

Paula Willie-Okafor

October 31, 2025

In a Time of Fire, Chuma Nwokolo Protects His Purpose

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.

Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

September 19, 2025

Iheoma Uzomba Wins Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award for Poetry

The Nigerian poet, a staff writer at Open Country Mag, will receive $1,500 for three poems in English and in Pidgin. It is the renowned magazine’s top honor.

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

August 26, 2025

An Igbo Painter Awakens the Native Imagination

The philosophical art world of Chiagoziem Nneamaka Orji.

Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

August 25, 2025

“Shatter That Silence”: A Nonfiction Prize Honours Stories of Women’s Lives

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.

Ada Nnadi

July 8, 2025

Taiwo Egunjobi’s Cinema of the Trapped

In grave dramas of styled minimalism, the Ibadan-born director constructs harsh worlds of dangerous dreams, in which characters are caught up in greed and violence.

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

June 24, 2025

His Style Is Symbolist: “Afro Contemporary Symbolism”

Grief led Uwana Anthony to make his short film Everything Must End. His style is “a movement and a cause for change in our approach to pursuing knowledge.”

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

May 27, 2025

She Makes 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

February 4, 2025

JK Anowe, a Confessional Poet, Confronts Himself

Working from fragments, the reclusive poet led a wave of young Nigerian voices situating the self and mental states. Now his “schizo poetry” is evolving, drawing from Igbo cosmology.

Iheoma Uzomba

January 28, 2025

Translating Under Empire

As Series Editors of Global Black Writers in Translation, Vanessa K. Valdés, Anette Joseph-Gabriel, and Nathan H. Dize know that “Black literature is the least translated.” In a mostly white field, the long histories of Afro-diasporic, Caribbean, Spanish, French, and Portuguese erasures inform their work.

Otosirieze

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

December 9, 2024

A Small Indie Producer Bets on Social Justice Cinema

Godwin Harrison’s “advocacy-led” HUG Media Concept is “about using cinema to address issues.” His new film Ima’mi is based on his life as an Efik prince who was outed as gay.

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

December 6, 2024

The Prodigious Arrival of Arinze Ifeakandu

In an era of unearned hype, the novelistic short stories of God’s Children Are Little Broken Things established him as a major talent, earning him the Dylan Thomas Prize. But as potent as fiction is in combating queer erasure, he believes in the supplement of living openly.

Paula Willie-Okafor

December 5, 2024

With the S16 Film Festival, an Arthouse Collective Locks Its Focus

A trio of young filmmakers banded together as the Surreal16 Collective, to resist Nollywood clichés. At their festival, Michael Omonua, C.J. “Fiery” Obasi, and Abba T. Makama curate a haven for unorthodox filmmakers.

Michael Aromolaran

November 25, 2024

A Navy Pilot Pivoted to Writing, Spurred by Surrealists

While flying military helicopters, Umar Abubakar Sidi wrote the two top-selling poetry books in Nigeria. Now he has a novel. One day, he will write about military life: “It is a reality I cannot escape.”

Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

November 15, 2024

Abi Daré Claims Her Space

The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl with the Louding Voice and And So I Roar on her writing process.

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji