Features

As the first published African female playwright and Ghana’s former Minister of Education, the author of No Sweetness Here and Our Sister Killjoy was admired by Chimamanda Adichie, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and popstar Burna Boy. “The decay of Africa’s social, political, and economic systems is directly related to the complete marginalization of women,” she once said.

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.

Nearly All the Men in Lagos Are Mad, the actress’ debut collection of stories, sold over 2,200 copies, assuring it the No. 1 spot on The Rovingheights Bestseller List: Presented with Open Country Mag. So why do these stories of failing romance connect so widely?

Alhaji Waziri Oshomah fused Highlife, local folk styles, and Western pop into songs of positivity in Auchi, Nigeria. When New York label Luaka Bop released The Muslim Highlife of Alhaji Waziri Oshomah in its World Spirituality Classics series last year, we spoke to musician and label about his artistry.

It is the second novel and ninth book by the great writer who appeared on the cover of Open Country Mag. Random House describes it as “a startling work of realism and invention.”

Ahead of its release in Nigeria, the collection about gay men just won the inaugural Republic of Consciousness Prize for the US and Canada: a highlight in a series of recognition from the Kirkus Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Story Prize, and the Lambda Awards.

In the 2000s, she was only another superstar in Nollywood. Now she is the most nominated actress in the histories of both the AMAAs and the AMVCAs, the industry’s two biggest awards. For Open Country Mag’s first film cover, we look into her reinvention from stage to screen, 25 years after she emerged on the scene.

As Paramount’s Country Director for Nigeria, Bada Akintunde-Johnson wants to model a new mode of business and creative leadership. “You can’t exert the highest possible positive influence on people without connecting with them on a deep personal level,” he said in this extensive interview — the first in our Leaders of Industries Series.

In this excerpt from Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s Between Starshine and Clay, the Nobel laureate and his friend Henry Louis Gates, Jr. remember another friend: the late Toni Morrison.

Before his manuscript won the 2022 Sillerman Prize, Tares Oburumu faced seemingly interminable hardship in his personal life. “The act of survival, for me, is a lot more inspirational than anything,” he said, “trying to put yourself in a place where there’s no place for you.”

The fantasy revenge thriller is Nigeria’s first indigenously produced film to go to Sundance, a first it already notched at Venice. “We tapped into something beyond us while making this one,” said producer Oge Obasi. “Hopefully, that opens more doors for Nigerian filmmakers,” said director C.J. Obasi.

Created by Didier Lacoste and Joy Fleury, with screenplay by Ukamaka Olisakwe, Adachioma Ezeano, and Jude Idada, it will focus on the two Franco-Dahomean Wars of 1890-94. The story, said Olisakwe, looks at “how this impacted lives and the Kingdom’s long rivalry with its neighbors.”

Seminal storyteller of queer love, satirist of race, literary icon.

Pearl of the Sea and KARIBA started as animation but ended as graphic novels—the former the first by Triggerfish Studios. Graphic novels are a “three-dimensional experience of literature,” said their publisher, Catalyst Press’ Jessica Powers. “Maybe we’re on the cusp of a trend across the African continent.”

The enigmatic American-Somali novelist, poet, and academic on her new memoir The White Mosque, literary hybridity, and the “dystopian hypocrisy” of social media.

The brief feature, by director John Adekoje, works memory, spirituality, and pain. “That’s indicative of the growth women have access to now,” said AMAAs Best Actress winner Egbuson, “to process our pain and become stronger, and transform, ascend.”

The Enugu-based hub, whose exhibitions, screenings, and lecture series have drawn 7,000 visitors, is, executive director Iheanyi Igboko says, “grooming a generation of young people who are not only grounded in their history and culture but proud of their Igbo identity.”

Awaiting Trial finds the emotional core of police brutality and the End SARS protests in Nigeria. It is “a deliberate telling of the consequences of the death and damage dealt on all of us,” said narrator and executive producer Chude Jideonwo.

“Love is a good point for telling stories because it brings out all the other emotions of pain, happiness, joy, euphoria, and sadness,” she said of the warmly received Ndani TV web series. “And it’s what our audience—a lot of them—want in their lives.”

Nigerian literature has the global acclaim that Nigerian cinema need only draw from. But will filmmakers look?