Essay

It’s not unusual, these days, to hear older writers eulogize the great critical tradition that heralded contemporary Nigerian writing, waxing nostalgic about a quality of literary criticism, which, in their estimation, has gone extinct. They chalk this regrettable state of affairs to the poor reading culture; and the understanding—or the lack thereof—of the dynamics of […]

On re-routing history 68-sh, 50-sh years later  I “No man ever steps in the same river twice.”  Heraclitus said that, and for the longest time, I thought it was just the sort of thing philosophers say when they are half-convinced that they are poets. The older I get, however, and the deeper I get interested […]

Going to the university for the first time in the harmattan semester of 1991-92, I first realised how influential Ngugi wa Thiong’o was in the Nigerian literary and dramatic spheres. Pen Point, the only independent student bulletin with which I would occasionally publish, had been named after a similar publication edited by Ngugi in the […]

Agbarha-Otor is a short drive, twenty minutes at the most, from Ughelli, one of 24 communities that make up the Urhobo ethnic nationality, and also functions as the administrative headquarters of Ughelli North LGA in Delta State. The coordinates, for those interested: 5°53′N 6°06′E. I found a commercial bike rider willing to take me from […]

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 […]