Olongo Africa

In 2025, OlongoAfrica embarked on a historic journey to recover, digitize, and restore the complete run of Black Orpheus (1957–1993). For the first time in decades, the journal that defined African modernism—publishing the early works of Leon Damas, Wole Soyinka, Ama Ata Aidoo, Christopher Okigbo, J.P. Clark, Chinua Achebe and many others —was made freely […]

OlongoAfrica is seeking a Remote Freelance Editor to lead our flagship translation initiative, the Lingua Project (lingua.olongoafrica.com).  The Mission Every year, on International Mother Language Day (February 21st), the Lingua Project publishes a curated collection of original stories translated into indigenous African languages—from Yorùbá and Igbo to Bambara and Swahili—accompanied by professional audio narrations. The […]

From 252 entries down to 11 longlisted authors, The Nigeria Prize for Literature have pruned their list down to three finalists. This year’s panel of judges is chaired by Associate Professor Saeedat Bolajoko Aliyu of the Department of English, Kwara State University. Other members of the panel include Professor Stephen Mbanefo Ogene, Professor of Comparative […]

Deadline for Applications: Monday, August 4, 2025 Call for Applications: A series co-editor for expertise in Middle Eastern literatures, for Best Literary Translations, an annual anthology that has been published by Deep Vellum since 2024. Best Literary Translations (BLT) is an annual anthology of exemplary poetry and prose translations into English that have appeared in […]

It gives us some pleasure to present the digitized copies of Black Orpheus journal to the public for the first time. Over the last six months, we’ve worked with Archivi.ng, a Nigerian nonprofit digitizing newspapers and other culture materials, to scan all the copies of Black Orpheus journals we obtained as part of the Black […]

We were thrilled by the response to our Black Orpheus Fellowship announcement late last year.  We got 59 applications, all of them fascinating and some quite ambitious. It took a while to read and assess all of them, but thanks to our five judges (editors, curators, academics) who read through the entries, rated them, and […]

OlongoAfrica is offering long-term and short-term opportunities to support quality research and writing on the history, politics, and influence of the Black Orpheus journal and the Mbari Club generation. We are offering both in-person fellowships on the ground in Lagos Nigeria, as well as remote fellowships in Nigeria and elsewhere around the world involving independent […]

Between October 31 and November 4, 2024, we unveiled an exhibition at the Art X Lagos showcasing the original covers and content of Black Orpheus journals. The exhibition, managed by JCAA Lagos, introduced attendees to a one-year project at OlongoAfrica which aims to unearth the history and legacy of Black Orpheus as a pan-African journal […]

Please join us from October 31 to November 3 at ART X Lagos for the unveiling of Black Orpheus Exploration Project our year-long project to explore, examine, and engage with the legacy of Black Orpheus to African literature, art, and culture production. Read more about the project here. The ART X Exhibition, featuring a few […]

August, 2024 OlongoAfrica.com presents a year-long project to explore the legacy of the Black Orpheus journal on literature and culture documentation around the African continent. The Black Orpheus Journal of African and Afro-American Literature was first published between 1957 and 1975. It was founded by Ulli Beier, a German-Jewish expatriate whose work in the arts […]