South Africa

My teacher and friend. A memorial was held today 8 August, 2023 in South Africa where he settled for most of the past 30 years. Kole was one of the earliest Nigerian academics to move to SA. He left Nigeria as soon as apartheid started thawing, ahead of independence. I first met Kole as a […]

Kamo held a braai at his house on Saturday. Tumi decided to go there dressed as Slick Rick, sporting an eye patch, thick dangling medallions and necklaces, trinkets, and all. It wasn’t a dress-up party or anything like that, he just felt like dressing up. And, because he had The Art of Storytelling playing on a loop […]

The stars lament his passing From Soweto’s seething streets to Bora Bora Kings, Queens, and Presidents flood the sky With tributes and purple garlands There goes a man In whose middling physical frame Throbbed a giant heart. Prophet who divined One complex rainbow in a land Ripped a-p-a-r-t by the colour creed He saw the […]

She works for a Chinese family in a modest-serious restaurant specializing in buffets of Sushi. It’s temporary, for sure. Her apron waits expectantly, like a boxer’s towel, to be thrown into the hospitality ring. Minimum wage. Student gratuity. He wants better for her than this. Their battling at present, he’s fully aware, is his fault. […]

Readers of Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon, Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street, and Ifeanyi Ajaegbo’s Sarah House may find Onyeka Nwelue’s The Strangers of Braamfontein familiar, especially in its discussion of sex trafficking of African women. However, that is where the comparison ends. There is blood in Nwelue’s latest novel—lots of blood. This is […]

The grey clouds enveloped the valley which nestled the school – an affluent boarding school for boys only. Sandwiched between two hilly edges, the school was part of a small urban growth point that benefited from Nonibe’s historical sites.  The school was  closing for the term that day and the queue was the last group […]