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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In the Dark: Review of Jumoke Verissimo’s ‘A Small Silence’
AiW Guest: Temitayo Olofinlua Prof, a pro-democracy activist, has just returned from prison after years of incarceration. And now he chooses to sit in darkness. Whenever he goes out, he is shrouded from head to toe in a dark cloak…. Read More ›
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Q&A: ‘The goal is to be free, not white’: an interview with Seun Kuti
AiW Guest Tọ́pẹ́ Salaudeen-Adégòkè Oluseun Anikulapo Kuti (born 11 January 1983), commonly known as Seun Kuti, is a Nigerian musician and the youngest son of legendary late afrobeat pioneer, Fela Kuti. Seun and his brother, Femi, are the two commercially… Read More ›
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A Tragic Story of War: Discussing Aminatta Forna’s The Memory of Love at the BBC Bookclub
AiW Guest Zahra Banday Zahra Banday attended a recent recording of BBC Radio 4’s Bookclub discussing Aminatta Forna’s novel The Memory of Love (2011). The BBC Bookclub programme aired on 1st September 2019; you can listen again here, or catch… Read More ›
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Of Odyssean Saga and Romantic Tragedy – a review of Chigozie Obioma’s An Orchestra of Minorities
AiW Guest Tọ́pẹ́ Salaudeen-Adégòkè ‘You paid me evil for all I did for you…’ –An Orchestra of Minorities. ‘If the luminous intensity of Good did not give the night of Evil its blackness, Evil would lose its appeal.’ –Literature and… Read More ›
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Caine Prize 2019 Shortlist: A Review of Lesley Nneka Arimah’s “Skinned”
AiW Guest: Tolulope Akinwole AiW’s annual Caine Prize review series is back, adding to our conversations over the years about prizes and prize culture – see Kate Wallis’ kick off from back in 2013. In the coming days we are… Read More ›
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Caine Prize 2019 Shortlist: A Review of Cherrie Kandie’s “Sew My Mouth”
AiW Guest: Temitayo Olofinlua This is the third in AiW’s annual Caine Prize for African Writing review series, reviewing all five of the shortlisted stories of 2019’s offerings. We’ve long used the opportunity to talk through the writing recognised by… Read More ›
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Q&A: Margaret Busby on ‘New Daughters of Africa’
AiW Guests: Ellen Mitchell and Sophie Kulik Margaret Busby (OBE) is a Ghanaian born editor, publisher, writer and broadcaster based in London, and has been described as the “Doyenne of Black British Publishing”. Busby was Britain’s youngest and first black… Read More ›
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Q&A: The ‘Self-Confessed Rambler’: In Conversation with TJ Dema
AiW Guests: Dani Payne and Isobel Clark TJ Dema is a poet and arts administrator, currently living in Bristol. As a spoken word poet, she reads her poetry all over the world. In 2018, she won the Sillerman Prize for… Read More ›
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Review: New Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Tano Part 5, Juxtapositions)
AiW Guest: Rashi Rohatgi AiW note: This is the last in a series of poetry reviews on the New-Generation African Poets Chapbook Box Set from AiW Guest Rashi Rohatgi. You can find the introduction to this series here, and reviews of the… Read More ›
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Living to not please the aesthetic of the colonized eye: Zanele Muholi’s “Somnyama Ngonyama”
AiW Guest: Bulelwa Mbele Somnyama Ngonyama: Hail the Dark Lioness is the latest release by the South African photographer and visual activist Zanele Muholi. Previously breaking ground with solo exhibitions including Only Half the Picture (2006, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town),… Read More ›
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Q&A: Peter Kimani, author of Dance of the Jakaranda, talks with Maëline Le Lay
AiW Guest: Maëline Le Lay Peter Kimani is an award-winning author. He was 1 of 3 poets commissioned to compose and present a poem marking Obama’s 2009 inauguration. Born in 1971 in Kenya, he has won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize… Read More ›
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Review: New Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Tano Part 4, Memory)
AiW Guest: Rashi Rohatgi AiW note: This is the fifth in a series of poetry reviews on the New-Generation African Poets Chapbook Box Set from AiW Guest Rashi Rohatgi. You can find the introduction to this series here, and reviews… Read More ›
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‘Reality the stranger fiction’: Review of Namwali Serpell’s ‘The Old Drift’
AiW Guest: Charlott Schönwetter Zzz Zzzz. At the beginning and – as much shall be revealed – at the end, a swarm of mosquitoes speaks: “This is the story of a nation – not a kingdom or a people –… Read More ›
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‘Every time we have an opportunity to view other people or other places, it adds value to our own lives’: Talking inclusion, community and joy with ‘Rafiki’ filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu
AiW Guests: Ben Apea, Aysha Taylor & Molly West Wanuri Kahiu is a Kenyan author, film director and producer, who has been making films since 2009. Her films From a Whisper, Pumzi, For Our Land and Rafiki engage with a… Read More ›
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Q&A: “My poetry feeds imagination to memory.” Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike interviews D.M. Aderibigbe
AiW Guest: Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike D.M. Aderibigbe‘s first book, How the End First Showed won the 2018 Brittingham Prize in Poetry and is published by the University of Wisconsin Press, November 2018. His poems have appeared in The Nation, Poetry Review, Callaloo, jubilat,… Read More ›
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Q&A: “Poetry as a vehicle for telling stories and interrogating memory.”Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike interviews Kólá Túbòsún
AiW Guest: Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike Kọlá Túbọsún is a Nigerian linguist and writer based in Lagos, Nigeria. He is a joint winner of the Saraba Magazine Manuscript Contest in 2017 and the winner of the 2018 Miles Morland Scholarship. He… Read More ›
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Review: Terry Kurgan’s “Everyone is Present”
AiW Guest: Andrew van der Vlies Terry Kurgan is one of South Africa’s most accomplished and sophisticated theorists of her own photographic practice. Her projects, both studio-based and publicly engaged, have frequently explored the mediations of power relations at play… Read More ›
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Review: Oyeyemi’s ‘Gingerbread’ has “no nostalgia baked in”
AiW Guest: Caitlin Bridget Shewell-Cooper. My friends have long heard my complaints that Helen Oyeyemi’s UK covers have never done the books justice. Too twee, too generic, chill out, Caitlin. The Riverhead Books US edition of Gingerbread, featuring a dark… Read More ›
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Review: New Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Tano Part 3, Politics)
AiW Guest: Rashi Rohatgi AiW note: This is the fourth in a series of poetry reviews on the New-Generation African Poets Chapbook Box Set from AiW Guest Rashi Rohatgi. You can find the introduction to this series here, and reviews… Read More ›
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Call for Papers: MLA 2020, African Literature to 1990 (deadline Mar. 15)
The Modern Language Association Forum for African Literature to 1990 is seeking papers for the following panels proposed for MLA 2020 (9-12 January) in Seattle, Washington: African Literature and the Cold War How does the global Cold War transform readings… Read More ›
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