Identity

On Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s The Naming

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How can one become a worthy citizen of the world, a patriot of his country, and an active member of his community if he or she has no knowledge of his or her ancestry? This appears to be the implied question which Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s full-length poetry collection, The Naming (University of Nebraska Press, 2025) profoundly […]

Beyond the Spectacle

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Ayotola Tehingbola’s Lagos Will Be Hard for You, a short story collection, published in the UK by Jacaranda Books (2026) and in Nigeria by Masobe Books (2025), begins with a death that refuses to stay contained. In “abba father,” the opening story of the collection, Ibrahim Mohammed learns, by way of a curt text message, […]

On Lineage and Voice

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On a humid afternoon, after a few years back from Germany, in our house in Nigeria, where my childhood had its formative years, I found a book lying on our dining table. Its cover showed a pair of drumming hands, brown against the dim yellow and blue of the jacket, and just beneath them, my […]

Gnawa Music and the Making of Dark-skinned Moroccan Identity

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Morocco’s reputation as a demographically heterogeneous country is perhaps one of its internationally recognizable characteristics. The presence of many ethnic groups, mainly dark-skinned people, is clear proof that traces of the Trans-Saharan trade are still unquestionably vivid. Ostrich eggs, salt, and jewelry were among the goods traded across the Sahara. Nevertheless, those, unfortunately, were not […]