Arts/Culture

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 […]

One October evening in 2000, there was a major upset at the FA Cup final in Nigeria. With sheer grit and resolve, Niger Tornadoes, a second-division team stunned the mighty Rangers of Enugu, beating them to lift the historical trophy after an own goal by one of the Rangers players. I remember going to the […]

When Oris Aigbokhaevbolo declared Nigerian literature dead, he did not do so casually. He was not lamenting a temporary lull or the disappearance of a few magazines. He was naming what he saw as a fundamental failure of formation. There was, in his account, no stable literary life to grow into. Writing appeared intensely, briefly, […]

Long after the last fire was put out in this old restaurant, the pot goes on smouldering. The band is in the area designated as the stage, tuning instruments. In a corner, a handful of young artists and intellectuals are arguing over some tedious philosophical point. Eau de Bohème, Édition Afrique. Liquor chases down smoke […]

Reviewer: Mosunmola O. AdeojoDocumentary: When I Say AfricaDirector: Cassandra HerrmanProducers: Cassandra Herrman, Linda Peckham, Kathryn Mathers Africa as backdrop. Africa as a stage. Africa as the set upon which someone else’s life story unfolds, their moral awakening performed, their benevolence practiced. In Cassandra Herrman’s documentary When I Say Africa, we are invited to confront this […]

Only the dead have seen the end of war- George Santayana Book: The Road to the Country, Author: Chigozie Obioma Publisher: Masobe Books, Lagos Year: 2024 The Nigeria civil war (1967-70) has produced so many literary works that it would be a surprise if definitive course (s) on the war is not already in our […]

Efe Paul Azino is the Director of the Lagos International Poetry Festival, now in its tenth year. He is a spoken-word poet and writer. He is also the founder of a new literature festival based in New York City. In this conversation, we discuss the new New York Black & African Literature Festival happening between […]

It is a common refrain to say Nigerian popular music doesn’t reflect the social issues of contemporary Nigeria, and yet frame its global rise as an emblem of Nigerian triumph and dysfunction. This disconnect between our claims that the music lacks sociopolitical substance and its overwhelming cultural influence leads to a state of critical coma, […]

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 […]

In February 2024, we sat with Nobel Laureate Wọlé Ṣóyínká as part of the production of Ebrohimie Road: A Museum of Memory — a documentary biopic that examines a location at the University of Ìbàdàn where he lived briefly when he was appointed as the first Nigerian Head of the School of Drama. It was […]