Review

Joshua Chizoma’s “Collector of Memories” weaves the epistemological to challenge the principles of our moralities while also entangling that with personal identity. In the “Collector of Memories”, one of the shortlisted stories for the prestigious 2022 Caine Prize for African Writing, Chizoma draws us to carefully read this poignant and visceral story that questions the […]

Certain trends have emerged on the AKO Caine Prize For African Writing shortlists over the last decade. One of the more productive ones is its affinity with the Short Story Day Africa (SSDA) shortlists, stories from the latter showing up on the former four times over a nine year period—one in 2018 and 2022, two […]

Hannah Giorgis is an emerging voice in African diaspora circles, but also in the wider international scene for her miscellanea of journalistic pieces. She writes mainly movie and book reviews, women and human rights advocative pieces that take up a broad array of  issues such as race relations, women’s oppression, blacklives matters and many others. […]

  In one of the most chilling stories of the true-crime genre, John List’s 1971 gruesome murder of his family stands tall, and this is not the most disturbing aspect of the story. Much later after he was found and arrested – almost two decades later – the question on the lips of most people […]

In Nigerian popular culture, ‘double wahala’ is a Pidgin English phrase that was made popular by ace Afrobeat musician and activist, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. To repeat it by adding ‘double trouble,’ the English variant  emphasizes the severity of the troubles. Nigerian literature has repeatedly featured the disorder and troubles that characterized postcolonial Nigerian life. Double […]

In the traditions that established earlier voices in modern Africa poetry, sociopolitical maladies have remained an arch theme. In the words of Omafune Onoge, what rocks African poetry most is the crisis of consciousness. And it is expected. Given the social political terrain of postcolonial Africa and the disillusionment that followed. Most African poets, ranging […]

Blood Sisters, the latest offering from EbonyLife Studios and NETFLIX’s  first Nigerian Original Series, is, at its best, a performance of cinematography. I have this image in my head of the filmmakers as peacocks, preening in anticipation of audiences’ reaction; I imagine them thinking, “their jaws will drop!”  This is not a bad thing, creating […]

     By merely looking at the cover of the book Nigerians… in Theory by Joe Abah and Yemi Adesanya, one might immediately place it within a certain tradition of Nigerian long-form commentary. For one, its sub-title ‘Our Quirks, Habits & Idiosyncrasies’. For another, its choice for cover art: cartoon characters illustrating the familiar scenario of […]

Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined. – Toni Morrison What does it mean to bring a city to life? To show its shapes and contours without yielding to the oft-tendency to romanticise? Eloghosa Osunde’s riveting debut, Vagabonds!, answers through a set of interlinked stories which can be read as a whole or independently, […]

Nigeria’s movie industry, Nollywood can no longer be regarded as a nascent industry, even though theorists and film historians are now defining the current age as the age of ‘New Nollywood’ because of advances in storytelling and cinematography. Still, the industry finds it difficult to move away from weak high society stories and romantic comedies. […]