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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Q&A: Words on the Times– Nick Mulgrew, founder & director of uHlanga Press
AiW note: To celebrate the past thirty years of independent distributing and bookselling at African Books Collective (ABC), we are running a series highlighting the wonderful work of those who make up ABC. We will be talking to some of… Read More ›
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Q&A Words on the Times, Outriders Africa: Emmanuel Iduma
Today we have the pleasure of sharing our final post in the Words on the Times, Outriders Africa series with Nigerian writer Emmanuel Iduma, with an excerpt from his travelogue A Stranger’s Pose. Iduma was born in Akure, Nigeria and… Read More ›
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A Review of ‘Nairobi Noir’, a collection of short stories edited by Peter Kimani
AiW Guest: Maëline Le Lay. Initially published by Akashic Books, the New York publisher of Kenyan novelist and journalist Peter Kimani (author of the highly regarded Dance of the Jakaranda), this collection of short stories complements the rich collection of “noir”… Read More ›
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Q&A: “We are happiest when we are representing publishers who want their books to be read” in conversation with Justin Cox, African Books Collective
AiW note: Justin Cox is the CEO of African Books Collective (ABC). ABC is an African owned, worldwide marketing and distribution outlet publishing books from Africa. It began trading in 1989 as a self-help initiative by a group of seventeen… Read More ›
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Q&A Words on the Times, Outriders Africa: Wanjiru Koinange
Today, we have the pleasure of sharing a Words on the Times, Outriders Africa with Kenyan writer Wanjiru Koinange, with an excerpt from her novel The Havoc of Choice. Wanjiru was raised on a farm on the outskirts of Nairobi,… Read More ›
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Here’s My Body, Take it! A Review of Romeo Oriogun’s ‘A Sacrament of Bodies’
AiW Guest: Tikondwe Kaphagawani Chimkowola. Romeo Oriogun’s Sacrament of Bodies (2020) opens with a quote from Kazim Ali that mourns, “in one place everyone looks like me – has my name – I am the most foreign”. This longing for… Read More ›
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Q&A: Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike interviews Ukamaka Olisakwe, author of “Ogadinma” (2020).
AiW Guest: Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike AiW note: Ukamaka Olisakwe’s Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Right was released with Indigo Press in September and from Masobe Books on the 27th October this year – marking itself as a “feminist classic in… Read More ›
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Creative Times & Living Testimonies (3): “Changing everything” – Keiskamma artists on life, work, and the COVID-19 Tapestry of Resilience
AiW note: This week, we have been following and introducing the stories behind the Keiskamma COVID-19 Resilience Tapestry, an epic, ambitious response to the pandemic made by the Keiskamma Art Project in the rural hamlet of Hamburg, South Africa. As… Read More ›
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Creative Times & Living Testimonies (2): “Connections are Strength” – Keiskamma artists on the COVID-19 Tapestry of Resilience
AiW note: Yesterday, as part of our Keiskamma COVID-19 Resilience Tapestry series, we introduced four artists from Keiskamma, leading on from Monday’s introduction to the work, which is currently underway. Today, in the second of our “meetings” posts with the… Read More ›
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Creative Times & Living testimonies (1): Keiskamma artists on life and work, and the COVID-19 Tapestry of Resilience
AiW note: Our posts, running over 5 days this week, introduce the Keiskamma COVID-19 Resilience Tapestry through the place, the people – its makers – and their history. The ambitious tapestry, responding to the pandemic, is being made by the… Read More ›
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Q&A Words on the Times, Outriders Africa: Donna Obaseki-Ogunnaike
Today, we are delighted to share a Words on the Times, Outriders Africa with Donna Obaseki-Ogunnaike – an Energy Law expert, speaker, humanivist ©, poet, writer and theatre practitioner, previously dubbed the ‘queen of spoken word poetry in Nigeria’ –… Read More ›
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Q&A Words on the Times, Outriders Africa: Nadine Aisha Jassat
AiW note: Outriders Africa, a project announced at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2019, builds on the existing ambitious Outriders concept, exploring “the idea that in shifting, disorienting times, a writer can make a unique contribution to our understanding… Read More ›
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African Jim: A Review of Christopher Mlalazi’s ‘The Border Jumper’
AiW Guest: Thulani Angoma-Mzini. In The Border Jumper (2019), Christopher Mlalazi upends the “Jim comes to Joburg” trope about the trafficking of rural dreams in a big city. Mlalazi has created a grimy, high-speed chase, shoot-‘em-up style novel written with… Read More ›
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Q&A: Words on the Times with Ivan Vladislavic on “The Distance”
South African novelist Vladislavić delivers a moving, closely observed study in family dynamics in a time of apartheid…Vladislavić’s tale unfolds with grace and precision. A memorable, beautifully written story of love and loss. — Kirkus, Starred Review Ivan Vladislavić’s latest… Read More ›
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Review: The collector as compulsive mythologist – Wole Soyinka’s “Beyond Aesthetics”.
AiW Guest: Joseph Oduro-Frimpong. AiW note: With his review of Wole Soyinka’s book, Beyond Aesthetics: Use, Abuse, and Dissonance in African Art Traditions – “an intimate reflection on culture and tradition, creativity and power, that draws on a lifetime’s commitment to… Read More ›
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Q&A: Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike interviews Prof. Chielozona Eze
AiW Guest: Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike. In another of the in-depth conversations offered to us from AiW guest and friend Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike, Chielozona Eze discusses his work in ethics and literary study — particularly in relation to the uses to… Read More ›
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Q&A: Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike with Prof. Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi
AiW Guest: Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike. Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature in the Department of English at North Carolina State University. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in African literature, postcolonial literary and cultural studies,… Read More ›
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The Treachery of Words: A Review of ‘Black Tax: Burden or Ubuntu?’
AiW Guest: Thulani Angoma-Mzini In the anthology Black Tax: Burden or Ubuntu (2019), award winning author Niq Mhlongo convenes a parliament of the who’s who of South African literati to dissect the term ‘black tax’. In South Africa the term… Read More ›
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Q&A: “No matter what, art and creativity can still shine through”: Words on the Times with Poda-Poda Stories’s Ngozi Cole
Poda-Poda Stories is a digital platform and literary journal that gathers rich stories from Sierra Leone and the Sierra Leonean diaspora, founded by Ngozi Cole in 2019. The name “Poda-Poda Stories” comes from Cole’s high school days where she travelled… Read More ›
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Where were the women? East African writing and the 1962 Makerere Conference.
AiW Guest: Anna Adima. The post-independence period in Kenya and Uganda is renowned for its burgeoning literature production. Uganda was the hub for these literary creativities in the 1960s, largely thanks to the English Department at Makerere University in Kampala,… Read More ›
