Author Archives
A series of Guest Author posts that open our conversations.
For more info, bios and links about each of our AiW Guests, scroll to the foot of their individual posts.
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Words on… Maik Nwosu: A Voice above the fray (Q&A)
By AiW Guest: Sanya Osha. Maik Nwosu – a novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright and professor of English literary studies at the University of Denver, Colorado – is one of the more intriguing as well as enduring figures of… Read More ›
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Spotlight on… Step back and step aside: Rereading Caroline Rooney on animism and African literature, a quarter of a century later
AiW Guest: Ranka Primorac, University of Southampton, UK. “This indicates that the Magistrate would need to step back and step aside, to allow for a seeing besides him. Those would be the steps to learn.” Caroline Rooney, African Literature, Animism… Read More ›
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Spotlight on… Fanny’s D’Or: Voice Against Blade
With AiW Guest: Leonie B. Predić, including a conversation with Fanny’s D’Or. “You were the key to the doors of space, now you are a scar, a phase” In Chad, listed by Saifaddin Galal’s 2023 research as the least gender… Read More ›
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Review: Nadia Davids’ ‘Bridling’ (on the Caine Prize Shortlist 2024)
AiW Guest: Tanaka Chidora. AiW note: Today’s post is the final in our 2024 Caine Prize Shortlist Reviews series (in full, with more coverage, here). Tanaka Chidora reviews the winning story by Nadia Davids, ‘Bridling’, published in The Georgia Review,… Read More ›
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Review: Home as Relationship – Tryphena L. Yeboah’s ‘The Dishwashing Women’ (on the Caine Prize Shortlist 2024)
AiW Guest: Beatrice Grace Munala. AiW note: Today’s post continues our 2024 Caine Prize Shortlist Reviews series (in full with more here), as Beatrice Munala reviews Ghanaian writer Tryphena Yeboah’s shortlisted story, ‘The Dishwashing Women’, published in Narrative Magazine, in… Read More ›
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Review: The Alienated Migrant – Samuel Kọ́láwọlé’s ‘Adjustment of Status’ (on the Caine Prize Shortlist 2024)
AiW Guest: Ekari Phiri. AiW note: Ekari’s piece continues our 2024 Caine Prize Shortlist Reviews series (the complete Caine Prize series is here), today, of Nigerian writer Samuel Kọ́láwọlé‘s shortlisted story, ‘Adjustment of Status’, published in New England Review, in… Read More ›
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Review: Family Dynamics in Uche Okonkwo’s ‘Animals’ (on the Caine Prize shortlist 2024)
AiW Guest: Difrodah Mnyika. AiW note: this is the second in our 2024 Caine Prize Shortlist Reviews series (full series here); today, our review is of Nigerian writer Uche Oknonkwo’s shortlisted story, ‘Animals’, published in ZYZZYVA, in 2024. NB: Our… Read More ›
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Review: Of Motherhood and Negotiation – ‘Breastmilk’ by ‘Pemi Aguda (on the Caine Prize shortlist 2024)
AiW Guest: Spemba Elias Spemba. AiW note: this is the first in our 2024 Caine Prize Shortlist Reviews series, of Nigerian writer ‘Pemi Aguda’s shortlisted story, ‘Breastmilk’, published in One Story, in 2021. NB: Our reviews may contain spoilers! Read… Read More ›
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Spotlight on… Editing Anthologies: Doorways, Communities, and Reference Texts
With AiW Guests: Chris Abani, Kwame Dawes, Joanne Hichens, and Hilda Twongyeirwe.Edited by: Ashawnta Jackson and Jessica Powers for #readingAfrica 2024 (Catalyst Press). Jackson and Powers: Anthologies offer readers the opportunity to explore multiple writers — their voices, experiences, and… Read More ›
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Spotlight Q&A: Editors & Writers talk – Ucheoma Onwutuebe’s ‘Where Are You and Where Is My Money’, with Lydia Mathis
AiW Guests: Ucheoma Onwutuebe and Lydia Mathis. AiW note: what follows is an email conversation between Nigerian writer Ucheoma Onwutuebe and 2023 Editorial Fellow at New York based literary magazine A Public Space, Lydia Mathis, held in October 2023. With… Read More ›
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Review: The Social Eyes on Women, Motherhood, and their Being in Elizabeth Allua Vaah’s ‘Maame’
AiW Guest: Tikondwe Chimkowola-Kadaluka. Elizabeth Allua Vaah’s Maame (Mawenzi House, 2020) is not just another clichéd tale about motherhood. Rather, it ties together a myriad of issues, with a special focus on how motherhood can be experienced variously in Ghana…. Read More ›
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Review: Bound to be Re-Read? ‘Bound to Violence’ – a Penguin Modern Classic for 2024
Le Devoir de Violence / Bound to Violence, by Malian writer Yambo Ouologuem was republished earlier this year as a Penguin Modern Classic, a series of books self-defined as “shaping the reading habits of generations since 1961.”
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Review: Ways of Travelling – Kharys Ateh Laue’s ‘Sketches’ (2023)
AiW Guest: Kris Van der Bijl. Kharys Ateh Laue’s debut prose work Sketches (MDL SEE, 2023) is recognisably a travelogue. In it, a South African protagonist-narrator travels across three countries, accompanied by her friend, Raph. Like most travelogues, it utilizes… Read More ›
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Q&A: Koleka Putuma – Revolutionising the archive and (backspace) dancing… ‘Hullo, Bu-Bye, Koko, Come in’
AiW Guests: Koleka Putuma Interviewed by: Siobhan Bahl, Freya Moulton and Tessa Rhodes On 22 February, 2022 “This is what it is, or what it was, this is the evolution of it all…” Koleka Putuma is an esteemed South African… Read More ›
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Review: Connection and Legacy – Remembering ‘Before Them, We’ (2022)
AiW Guest: Virginia Kelly Before Them, We (flipped eye, London, 2022) is a beautiful anthology of poems and collection of photographs curated by Ruth Sutoyé and Jacob Sam-La Rose. Part of a longer interdisciplinary project to excavate the lives and… Read More ›
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Review: Tragedy and Resilience in Lagos – The Truth About Sadia by Lola Akande
AiW Guest: Ademola Adesola. Lola Akande’s latest novel, The Truth about Sadia (Tunmike Publishers, 2023), follows Sadia Onaolapo Oyelowo’s journey from childhood to adulthood. Set in a recognizable Lagos, Nigeria, so crucial is Sadia to the novel that every “truth”… Read More ›
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Spotlight on… Die Antwoord: the artifice of art, the art of artifice
AiW Guest: Sanya Osha …with a longer form read for us, at around 2.5k words… The recent ‘cancellation’ of Die Antwoord – the South African ‘zef’ subculture-proclaiming, alternative hip hop duo – and their subsequent withdrawal from the public eye,… Read More ›
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Review: Between Self and Selflessness in Protest – ‘Taduno’s Song’ by Odafe Atogun
AiW Guest: Tọ́pẹ́-ẸniỌbańkẹ́ Adégòkè. Odafe Atogun’s début novel, Taduno’s Song (2016), is an extended allegory about a people living through the tangle of social oppression and its attendant anxieties. Through a focus on music, specifically voice and song, it explores… Read More ›
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Q&A: Serawit Bekele Debele —Literatures of the Horn of Africa, a conversation series
AiW Guests Interviewers: Farida Elshafei, Ilana Graham, Lauryn Jenkins, Noha Choudhry. Interviewee: Serawit Bekele Debele. Interview Date: 14th December 2021 AiW note: This is one in a series of interviews carried out by undergraduate students as part of the module… Read More ›
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Reviews: ‘The porousness of cultural boundaries’ — Thoughts on the publication of Karin Barber’s A History African Popular Culture (2018)
AiW Guest: Pernille Nailor. AiW note: this is one of two linked reviews of Emeritus Professor of African Cultural Anthropology at the University of Birmingham, Karin Barber’s latest book, A History of African Popular Culture (2018, Cambridge UP), with our thanks… Read More ›
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