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October 8, 2021

Reading Abdulrazak Gurnah: 22 Essays on the 2021 Nobel Prize Winner’s Works

In awarding the Tanzanian novelist, short story writer, critic, and former academic, the Swedish Academy recommends these.
Emmanuel Esomnofu
Abdulrazak Gurnah by Frank Augstein/AP.

October 7, 2021

Tanzanian Novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah Wins Nobel Prize in Literature, Becomes Second Black African Laureate

The prolific 73-year-old, whose latest is the novel Afterlives, has been awarded “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.”
Otosirieze
Abdulrazak Gurnah by Mark Pringle.

October 7, 2021

Linking Sierra Leonean Literature

Poda-Poda Stories is a digital platform for writers from Sierra Leone, whose literary scene was disrupted by a decade-long civil war and is now regenerating with great promise. “I started it to look inward and celebrate our own writing,” says editor Ngozi Cole in this interview. “What was missing was building bridges and connections.”
Ernest Ogunyemi
Photo from Sierra Leone Writers Collective on Facebook.

September 20, 2021

Damon Galgut & Nadifa Mohamed Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

The South African Galgut makes the list for the third time, for The Promise. The Somali Mohamed is chosen for her The Fortune Men.
The Booker Prize Foundation
Damon Galgut. From The Booker Prize.

September 17, 2021

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Is on the September 2021 Cover of Open Country Mag

Fifteen years ago, she published Half of a Yellow Sun, her great novel about the Biafran War. In a wide-ranging exclusive sit-down interview with Open Country Mag, she is looking back, feeling the present, and thinking forward.
Otosirieze
Open Country Mag Reissues Cover of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

September 17, 2021

Kunle Afolayan’s Netflix Adaptation of Sefi Atta’s Swallow Slated for October 1

The screenplay is by the filmmaker and the novelist. Singer Niyola makes her film debut as the lead.
Paula Willie-Okafor
Eniola Akinbo (Niyola) as Tolani Ajao in the forthcoming film adaptation of Swallow. Credit: KapHubNews.

September 14, 2021

Sulaiman Addonia Wins Golden Afro Artistic Award for Literature

The Belgian awards, which seek to improve cultural diversity in the country, honoured the Eritrean Ethiopian novelist and curator for founding a literary festival and a writing academy for refugees.
Paula Willie-Okafor
Sulaiman Addonia accepts his Golden Afro Artistic Award, flanked onstage by friends. Source: Sulaiman Addonia's Twitter.

September 13, 2021

Inside Agbowó, a Nigerian Literary and Arts Hub

With a literary magazine, an events platform ArtsnChill, and a new online publishing arm, an arts organisation, Agbowó, continues “to hold a space where it is unnecessary to be someone else.”
Emmanuel Esomnofu
At an ArtsnChill event, organized by Agbowo, where the poet Dami Ajayi read. Credit: ArtsnChill.

September 8, 2021

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Angela Merkel Talk Politics, Feminism, and Stories

The opening event at the Theater der Welt Festival in Germany saw the cultural icon and the European leader share experiences on race, fashion, and difference.
Otosirieze
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Credit: The Guardian.

September 6, 2021

A Novelist Entered Literary Curation, Still Honouring Her Feminist Roots

Ukamaka Olisakwe’s novels, including the latest Ogadinma, narrate womanhood in Nigeria. Last year, she started a magazine, Isele, named after her artist grandmother.
Paula Willie-Okafor
Ukamaka Olisakwe. Credit: Ukamaka Olisakwe.

September 4, 2021

Of This Our Country Audiobook to Be Narrated by Weruche Opia and Oseloka Obi

The two actors of Nigerian descent will narrate HarperCollins’ and The Borough Press’ forthcoming collection of essays by Nigerian writers.
Emmanuel Esomnofu
Some writers featured in Of This Our Country.

September 1, 2021

The Bank Windhoek Doek Literary Awards: The Shortlist

The list “features some of the most resonant fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art from Namibia.”
Doek! Magazine
Doek! Issue 6 cover.

August 24, 2021

AKO Caine Prize Winner Meron Hadero on Language, Musicality, and How “Writing Asks for Empathy”

“If we are to make our characters feel human and real, they require our care,” she says of her story “The Street Sweep.”
Emmanuel Esomnofu
Meron Hadero. Credit: Meron Hadero.

August 20, 2021

Introduction to 20.35 Africa Vol. IV: “The Opportunity to Read African Poetry Along Language Aesthetics”

“What we bring is a seminal thinking of poetry,” writes the poetry series’ editor-in-chief Ebenezer Agu. “We must recognize the beauty and complexity of this transcreation.”
20.35 Africa
20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Vol. IV.

August 5, 2021

The Bank Windhoek Doek Literary Awards: The Longlist

Namibia’s first literary magazine announces the country’s first literary awards.
Doek! Magazine
The Bank Windhoek Doek Literary Awards logo.

August 5, 2021

Kwame Dawes’ African Poetry Digital Portal Gets $750,000 Mellon Foundation Grant

It will enhance the next phase of the Portal, “expanding research and scholarship relating to African poetry and joining with other institutions to create a digital collections hub that will give access to materials held by institutions worldwide.”
Emmanuel Esomnofu
Kwame Dawes and Lorna Dawes. Photo by Annie Albin / University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

July 27, 2021

The Booker Prize 2021 Longlist

Three Africans are in the running this year: Damon Galgut for The Promise, Nadifa Mohamed for The Fortune Men, and Karen Jennings for An Island.
Ernest Ogunyemi

July 26, 2021

Meron Hadero Wins AKO Caine Prize, for “Beautiful Tale” of Ethiopia’s “Young, Ingenuous Generation”

The writer, previously shortlisted for the £10,000 award in 2019, is the first winner from her country. Her story, “The Street Sweep,” “negotiates the imported power dynamics of foreign aid in Addis Ababa.”
The AKO Caine Prize
Meron Hadero. Credit: Meron Hadero.

July 26, 2021

The Borough Press Acquires Adorah Nworah’s Debut, House Woman

The book, a tribute to horror stories, arrives in 2022.
The Borough Press
Adorah Nworah. From law.temple.edu.

July 15, 2021

52 Books in 64 Years: Your Guide to Wole Soyinka’s Body of Work

“Only one universal ideology answers human cruelties, the excesses of power, bigotries, social inequalities and alienation: Literature,” wrote Africa’s first Nobel laureate in literature, who turned 87 this week.
Ernest Ogunyemi
Wole Soyinka. Credit: University of Oxford.

October 8, 2021

Abdulrazak Gurnah by Frank Augstein/AP.

Reading Abdulrazak Gurnah: 22 Essays on the 2021 Nobel Prize Winner’s Works

In awarding the Tanzanian novelist, short story writer, critic, and former academic, the Swedish Academy recommends these.
Emmanuel Esomnofu

October 7, 2021

Abdulrazak Gurnah by Mark Pringle.

Tanzanian Novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah Wins Nobel Prize in Literature, Becomes Second Black African Laureate

The prolific 73-year-old, whose latest is the novel Afterlives, has been awarded “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.”
Otosirieze

October 7, 2021

Photo from Sierra Leone Writers Collective on Facebook.

Linking Sierra Leonean Literature

Poda-Poda Stories is a digital platform for writers from Sierra Leone, whose literary scene was disrupted by a decade-long civil war and is now regenerating with great promise. “I started it to look inward and celebrate our own writing,” says editor Ngozi Cole in this interview. “What was missing was building bridges and connections.”
Ernest Ogunyemi

September 20, 2021

Damon Galgut. From The Booker Prize.

Damon Galgut & Nadifa Mohamed Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

The South African Galgut makes the list for the third time, for The Promise. The Somali Mohamed is chosen for her The Fortune Men.
The Booker Prize Foundation

September 17, 2021

Open Country Mag Reissues Cover of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Is on the September 2021 Cover of Open Country Mag

Fifteen years ago, she published Half of a Yellow Sun, her great novel about the Biafran War. In a wide-ranging exclusive sit-down interview with Open Country Mag, she is looking back, feeling the present, and thinking forward.
Otosirieze

September 17, 2021

Eniola Akinbo (Niyola) as Tolani Ajao in the forthcoming film adaptation of Swallow. Credit: KapHubNews.

Kunle Afolayan’s Netflix Adaptation of Sefi Atta’s Swallow Slated for October 1

The screenplay is by the filmmaker and the novelist. Singer Niyola makes her film debut as the lead.
Paula Willie-Okafor

September 14, 2021

Sulaiman Addonia accepts his Golden Afro Artistic Award, flanked onstage by friends. Source: Sulaiman Addonia's Twitter.

Sulaiman Addonia Wins Golden Afro Artistic Award for Literature

The Belgian awards, which seek to improve cultural diversity in the country, honoured the Eritrean Ethiopian novelist and curator for founding a literary festival and a writing academy for refugees.
Paula Willie-Okafor

September 13, 2021

At an ArtsnChill event, organized by Agbowo, where the poet Dami Ajayi read. Credit: ArtsnChill.

Inside Agbowó, a Nigerian Literary and Arts Hub

With a literary magazine, an events platform ArtsnChill, and a new online publishing arm, an arts organisation, Agbowó, continues “to hold a space where it is unnecessary to be someone else.”
Emmanuel Esomnofu

September 8, 2021

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Credit: The Guardian.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Angela Merkel Talk Politics, Feminism, and Stories

The opening event at the Theater der Welt Festival in Germany saw the cultural icon and the European leader share experiences on race, fashion, and difference.
Otosirieze

September 6, 2021

Ukamaka Olisakwe. Credit: Ukamaka Olisakwe.

A Novelist Entered Literary Curation, Still Honouring Her Feminist Roots

Ukamaka Olisakwe’s novels, including the latest Ogadinma, narrate womanhood in Nigeria. Last year, she started a magazine, Isele, named after her artist grandmother.
Paula Willie-Okafor

September 4, 2021

Some writers featured in Of This Our Country.

Of This Our Country Audiobook to Be Narrated by Weruche Opia and Oseloka Obi

The two actors of Nigerian descent will narrate HarperCollins’ and The Borough Press’ forthcoming collection of essays by Nigerian writers.
Emmanuel Esomnofu

September 1, 2021

Doek! Issue 6 cover.

The Bank Windhoek Doek Literary Awards: The Shortlist

The list “features some of the most resonant fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art from Namibia.”
Doek! Magazine

August 24, 2021

Meron Hadero. Credit: Meron Hadero.

AKO Caine Prize Winner Meron Hadero on Language, Musicality, and How “Writing Asks for Empathy”

“If we are to make our characters feel human and real, they require our care,” she says of her story “The Street Sweep.”
Emmanuel Esomnofu

August 20, 2021

20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Vol. IV.

Introduction to 20.35 Africa Vol. IV: “The Opportunity to Read African Poetry Along Language Aesthetics”

“What we bring is a seminal thinking of poetry,” writes the poetry series’ editor-in-chief Ebenezer Agu. “We must recognize the beauty and complexity of this transcreation.”
20.35 Africa

August 5, 2021

The Bank Windhoek Doek Literary Awards logo.

The Bank Windhoek Doek Literary Awards: The Longlist

Namibia’s first literary magazine announces the country’s first literary awards.
Doek! Magazine

August 5, 2021

Kwame Dawes and Lorna Dawes. Photo by Annie Albin / University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Kwame Dawes’ African Poetry Digital Portal Gets $750,000 Mellon Foundation Grant

It will enhance the next phase of the Portal, “expanding research and scholarship relating to African poetry and joining with other institutions to create a digital collections hub that will give access to materials held by institutions worldwide.”
Emmanuel Esomnofu

July 27, 2021

The Booker Prize 2021 Longlist

Three Africans are in the running this year: Damon Galgut for The Promise, Nadifa Mohamed for The Fortune Men, and Karen Jennings for An Island.
Ernest Ogunyemi

July 26, 2021

Meron Hadero. Credit: Meron Hadero.

Meron Hadero Wins AKO Caine Prize, for “Beautiful Tale” of Ethiopia’s “Young, Ingenuous Generation”

The writer, previously shortlisted for the £10,000 award in 2019, is the first winner from her country. Her story, “The Street Sweep,” “negotiates the imported power dynamics of foreign aid in Addis Ababa.”
The AKO Caine Prize

July 26, 2021

Adorah Nworah. From law.temple.edu.

The Borough Press Acquires Adorah Nworah’s Debut, House Woman

The book, a tribute to horror stories, arrives in 2022.
The Borough Press

July 15, 2021

Wole Soyinka. Credit: University of Oxford.

52 Books in 64 Years: Your Guide to Wole Soyinka’s Body of Work

“Only one universal ideology answers human cruelties, the excesses of power, bigotries, social inequalities and alienation: Literature,” wrote Africa’s first Nobel laureate in literature, who turned 87 this week.
Ernest Ogunyemi

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— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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