Uchechukwu Umezurike
Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia’s Gender Quest
The past decade has witnessed a resurgence of female novelists in Nigeria, particularly in fiction. It comes as no surprise that American and European publishers have published the novels of more Nigerian women than those of their male counterparts. This is a welcome development, no less fantastic. The resurgence is also evident in the current […]
The Strangers of Braamfontein’s Slightest Hope
Readers of Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon, Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street, and Ifeanyi Ajaegbo’s Sarah House may find Onyeka Nwelue’s The Strangers of Braamfontein familiar, especially in its discussion of sex trafficking of African women. However, that is where the comparison ends. There is blood in Nwelue’s latest novel—lots of blood. This is […]
[REVIEW]: Meron Hadero’s Sense of Hope
This is the second time Meron Hadero, the Ethiopian American writer, has been shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing. She made the shortlist in 2019 with her heartbreaking story “The Wall,” though Lesley Nneka Arimah, the Nigerian American, would win the prize with “Skinned,” a riveting, eerie story about gender inequality. Hadero is […]
[INTERVIEW] “I am a child of the 80s.”
Cheluchi Onyemelukwe’s debut novel, The Son of the House, won the award for Best Fiction Writer at the 2019 Sharjah International Book Fair. Uche: Congrats on The Son of the House—a heartrending novel dealing with rape, teenage pregnancy, treachery, and female oppression. What was it like writing it, and how did it start? Cheluchi: Thank […]
The Receptive Man in Ukamaka Olisakwe’s ‘Ogadinma’
Ukamaka Olisakwe is one of Nigeria’s exciting fiction writers. Her latest novel, Ogadinma, or Everything Will Be All Right, presents a montage of men – or different images of masculinity – as a way of telling a story of growth and discovery. The novel deplores male hegemony and exposes the perils of gender violence, while […]