Essay

On re-modelling history 68-sh, 50-sh years later I When budgets get tight, the first thing that gets cut is the arts. People look at a literary journal or a poetry prize or some experimental performance thing happening in a hall and think, “This is cute, but is it really necessary?” Every time I hear that, […]

When I came across a writer’s online rant about his original work being flagged as 60% AI-generated, I thought he must be a bad writer. Not because the detectors are infallible, but because I’ve come to believe AI itself is a bad writer. Clean, articulate, even clever, but insipid. It writes with zero soul. So, […]

The off-Broadway premiere of Wole Soyinka’s 1958 play, The Swamp Dwellers, offers at least two reasons to be excited, and hopeful. The first comes from a point that is almost over-made in the American media, with theatre critics describing the event as some sort of lost-and-found moment. The New York Times reported the playwright himself […]

On re-counting history 68-sh, 50-sh years later I It is easy to miss the moment when an intellectual tradition starts to wither: there is no bang, no funeral, no obituary. Nothing grand. It just disappears, and one day, you look around and realise that everything is gone, via a slow, suffocating erosion. Black Orpheus was […]

There is a peculiar fate in literature: some books die and some books are killed, not because they weren’t read or weren’t loved, but because they were regarded as unbearable. And some simply refuse to vanish. They exist as whispers, as rumors in footnotes, as echoes in the margins of other people’s stories. Mohamed Mbougar […]

By Tádé Ìpàdéọlá Poets who are also scholars of poetry occupy a peculiar niche in the ineffable enterprise of memorable music and words. They are not rare birds in the West (or the Orient), but here in Africa, the sighting of one such personage is something to cherish. If granted the further pleasure of not […]

On re-visiting history 68-sh, 50-sh years later I Last month, when I said you would hear from me soon, I didn’t know it would be this difficult to keep to the commitment. I knew I would be doing lots of travels, but I didn’t know ‘lots of travels’ would mean stops in about 10 cities […]

On Re-Presenting History 68-sh, 50-sh years later I. Last year, November, I was in Lagos for the onboarding process for my research fellowship at Archivi.ng. This was coming after all the ‘Hello, we’d love to hear more about your project,’ ‘Tell us about yourself/your history of knowledge work production,’ and ‘You will hear from us’ […]

It started with a panic that spread over a bright day and blurred visions. Then an unknown rattling came from behind. They heard the gunshots. Terrified, they sat still, waving the Nigerian flag and chanting. They didn’t know who had fired those gunshots. Some would say they were soldiers. Others would reckon they were police. […]

How Nigerian Charismatic Christianity Became a Thing It takes two hours to get past Third Mainland Bridge when traffic is thick. I am squeezed beside a petite woman in a congested bus. Her head hangs over the phone screen. A young preacher vibrates on the screen, and she mutters along.  Amen. Amen. I look in […]