Features

October 14, 2024

“African writers are just not credited enough as innovators”: Otosirieze Speaks to The Republic

In his first interview in three years, the Open Country Mag editor opened up on a range of issues in African and global literature, from The New York Times’ exclusion of Africans from its “Best Books of the 21st Century” list to the need for “sustained critical thinking about the state of Nigeria and Africa.”

Ada Nnadi

September 27, 2024

The OCM Curatorial Fellowship Presents: Luba, an Exhibition on Malawian Flora

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.”

Otosirieze

September 20, 2024

The OCM Curatorial Fellowship Presents: One Foot in the Closet, a Podcast for Queer & Beyond-the-Binary Africans

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.'”

Otosirieze

August 19, 2024

Francis Cardinal Arinze Is on the August 2024 Cover of Open Country Mag

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.

Otosirieze

August 5, 2024

A Lack in Liberian Literature

There is no literary bookstore in Africa’s oldest modern country. But, after civil wars and an epidemic, its writers are writing, and hoping.

Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

August 2, 2024

The OCM Curatorial Fellowship Presents: Among Us, Scans of Ancient Nok Art for an AR-scape

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.”

Otosirieze

August 2, 2024

The OCM Curatorial Fellowship Presents: It’s Bloom Time, a 3-D Fashion Story Collection

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.”

Otosirieze

July 26, 2024

Aiwanose Odafen’s Duology of Womanhood

For the Nigerian novelist, women’s lives are the plot. With Tomorrow I Become a Woman and We Were Girls Once, the first two books in a planned cross-generational trilogy, she takes us into the burdens of marriage, motherhood, ethnicity, and class.

Iheoma Uzomba

June 3, 2024

Adedayo Agarau Wins Poetic Justice Book Prize for “Achingly Personal, Coming-of-Age” Poems

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.

Otosirieze

March 28, 2024

Momtaza Mehri’s Fluid Diasporas

Having traversed regions, her poetry, including the Forward Prize-winning Bad Diaspora Poems, interrogates a race- and class-conscious world — and her place in it as a Muslim Somali woman.

Iheoma Uzomba

March 25, 2024

“A Richness of African Consciousness”: How a Spiritual Novel Influenced a Music Album

Booker Prize winner Ben Okri, author of The Famished Road, and Ghanaian rapper Delasi, with the EP The Audacity of Free Thought, in a deep, rare reflection on storytelling, art forms, and their quests for origins.

Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

March 6, 2024

A Poet Imagines Dreams for the Displaced

In Exodus, his debut collection, ‘Gbenga Adeoba threads the histories, migrations, and traumas of people forced to sea.

Iheoma Uzomba

February 26, 2024

How Tolu Obanro, Nollywood’s Top Composer, Crafts the Sounds of Its Biggest Hits

Hopping between genres, his scores are heard in almost every major recent box office and streaming success, including A Tribe Called Judah, Jagun Jagun, Gangs of Lagos, and Battle on Buka Street. “I’ve been trusted by filmmakers,” he said.

Paula Willie-Okafor

February 26, 2024

Nonzo Bassey’s Songs of Heartbreak

On his debut album Diary of a Loverboy, the Nigerian singer and actor channels frustration, anger, and love.

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

January 31, 2024

“I Used to Think Stories Only Had Artistic Value if They Were Tragic”: Feel Good Hums with Queer Joy

Editors Daniel Orubo and OluTimehin Kukoyi, and contributors Olakunle Ologunro, Innocent Ilo, Edwin Okolo, Fareeda Abdulkareem, and Ani Kayode, on the freedoms and radicality of fictionalizing happiness for LGBTQ+ Nigerians.

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

December 11, 2023

Leila Aboulela Is on the December 2023 Cover of Open Country Mag

As war rages in Sudan, we turn to one of its major artists, a pioneering figure in the 2000s resurgence in African literature.

Otosirieze

November 30, 2023

The Fates and Faith of Chess Master Tunde Onakoya

In five years, Chess in Slums Africa brought hope to thousands of children and became a charity phenomenon. But, to get there, its founder had to survive terrors.

Otosirieze

November 28, 2023

The Overlapping Realisms of Eloghosa Osunde

In their debut novel-in-stories Vagabonds!, the Nigerian writer and visual artist pursues an alternate reality of their mind, taking on, among other subjects, social normalcy, gender, and queerness.

Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

November 28, 2023

DK Nnuro Finds His Answers

The Ghanaian American author of What Napoleon Could Not Do, a summer reading pick by Barack Obama, has been thinking about art in our contemporary times.

Adams Adeosun

October 12, 2023

“It’s the Fact That We Did It Our Own Way”: How Yahoo+ Captured a Desperate Side of Internet Fraud

Director, producer, and screenplay writer Ebuka Njoku and producer Lorenzo Menakaya on their professional journeys and the making of their Netflix No. 1 hit.

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

October 14, 2024

“African writers are just not credited enough as innovators”: Otosirieze Speaks to The Republic

In his first interview in three years, the Open Country Mag editor opened up on a range of issues in African and global literature, from The New York Times’ exclusion of Africans from its “Best Books of the 21st Century” list to the need for “sustained critical thinking about the state of Nigeria and Africa.”

Ada Nnadi

September 27, 2024

The OCM Curatorial Fellowship Presents: Luba, an Exhibition on Malawian Flora

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.”

Otosirieze

September 20, 2024

The OCM Curatorial Fellowship Presents: One Foot in the Closet, a Podcast for Queer & Beyond-the-Binary Africans

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.'”

Otosirieze

August 19, 2024

Francis Cardinal Arinze Is on the August 2024 Cover of Open Country Mag

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.

Otosirieze

August 5, 2024

A Lack in Liberian Literature

There is no literary bookstore in Africa’s oldest modern country. But, after civil wars and an epidemic, its writers are writing, and hoping.

Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

August 2, 2024

The OCM Curatorial Fellowship Presents: Among Us, Scans of Ancient Nok Art for an AR-scape

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.”

Otosirieze

August 2, 2024

The OCM Curatorial Fellowship Presents: It’s Bloom Time, a 3-D Fashion Story Collection

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.”

Otosirieze

July 26, 2024

Aiwanose Odafen’s Duology of Womanhood

For the Nigerian novelist, women’s lives are the plot. With Tomorrow I Become a Woman and We Were Girls Once, the first two books in a planned cross-generational trilogy, she takes us into the burdens of marriage, motherhood, ethnicity, and class.

Iheoma Uzomba

June 3, 2024

Adedayo Agarau Wins Poetic Justice Book Prize for “Achingly Personal, Coming-of-Age” Poems

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.

Otosirieze

March 28, 2024

Momtaza Mehri’s Fluid Diasporas

Having traversed regions, her poetry, including the Forward Prize-winning Bad Diaspora Poems, interrogates a race- and class-conscious world — and her place in it as a Muslim Somali woman.

Iheoma Uzomba

March 25, 2024

“A Richness of African Consciousness”: How a Spiritual Novel Influenced a Music Album

Booker Prize winner Ben Okri, author of The Famished Road, and Ghanaian rapper Delasi, with the EP The Audacity of Free Thought, in a deep, rare reflection on storytelling, art forms, and their quests for origins.

Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

March 6, 2024

A Poet Imagines Dreams for the Displaced

In Exodus, his debut collection, ‘Gbenga Adeoba threads the histories, migrations, and traumas of people forced to sea.

Iheoma Uzomba

February 26, 2024

How Tolu Obanro, Nollywood’s Top Composer, Crafts the Sounds of Its Biggest Hits

Hopping between genres, his scores are heard in almost every major recent box office and streaming success, including A Tribe Called Judah, Jagun Jagun, Gangs of Lagos, and Battle on Buka Street. “I’ve been trusted by filmmakers,” he said.

Paula Willie-Okafor

February 26, 2024

Nonzo Bassey’s Songs of Heartbreak

On his debut album Diary of a Loverboy, the Nigerian singer and actor channels frustration, anger, and love.

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

January 31, 2024

“I Used to Think Stories Only Had Artistic Value if They Were Tragic”: Feel Good Hums with Queer Joy

Editors Daniel Orubo and OluTimehin Kukoyi, and contributors Olakunle Ologunro, Innocent Ilo, Edwin Okolo, Fareeda Abdulkareem, and Ani Kayode, on the freedoms and radicality of fictionalizing happiness for LGBTQ+ Nigerians.

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji

December 11, 2023

Leila Aboulela Is on the December 2023 Cover of Open Country Mag

As war rages in Sudan, we turn to one of its major artists, a pioneering figure in the 2000s resurgence in African literature.

Otosirieze

November 30, 2023

The Fates and Faith of Chess Master Tunde Onakoya

In five years, Chess in Slums Africa brought hope to thousands of children and became a charity phenomenon. But, to get there, its founder had to survive terrors.

Otosirieze

November 28, 2023

The Overlapping Realisms of Eloghosa Osunde

In their debut novel-in-stories Vagabonds!, the Nigerian writer and visual artist pursues an alternate reality of their mind, taking on, among other subjects, social normalcy, gender, and queerness.

Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

November 28, 2023

DK Nnuro Finds His Answers

The Ghanaian American author of What Napoleon Could Not Do, a summer reading pick by Barack Obama, has been thinking about art in our contemporary times.

Adams Adeosun

October 12, 2023

“It’s the Fact That We Did It Our Own Way”: How Yahoo+ Captured a Desperate Side of Internet Fraud

Director, producer, and screenplay writer Ebuka Njoku and producer Lorenzo Menakaya on their professional journeys and the making of their Netflix No. 1 hit.

Victor Ebubechukwu Orji