Author Archives

Editorial Assistant at Africa in Words.

• Review and Q&A: Leila Aboulela’s ‘River Spirit’ – Rewriting the Footnotes of Sudanese Colonial History

  By Ellen Addis on 13 April , 2023 • ( 1 )

  

  AiW note: AiW editor Ellen Addis reviews Leila Aboulela’s novel, River Spirit (Saqi Books), a historical fiction narrative which takes place in 1880s Sudan and tracks the rise of the Mahdist Revolution. Accompanying the review today is Ellen’s Q&A with… Read More ›

• Review: “An Odyssean coming-of-age” – A Long Way from Douala by Max Lobe

  By Ellen Addis on 31 March , 2022 • ( 0 )

  

  AiW note: Max Lobe was born in Douala, Cameroon. Last year marked the first publication in English translation of A Long Way from Douala (HopeRoad and Small Axes 2021, translated by Ros Schwartz), a novel which tackles important issues such as… Read More ›

• Review Q&A: Max Lobe – On translation and his colourful Cameroonian novel, A Long Way from Douala

  By Ellen Addis on 31 March , 2022 • ( 0 )

  

  AiW note:  Last year marked the first publication in English translation of Max Lobe’s novel A Long Way from Douala (HopeRoad – Small Axes 2021), translated by Ros Schwartz. Important issues of violence, terrorism, homosexuality and migration feature in A Long… Read More ›

• Q&A: “Ceremony is always imbued with sound”: Composer Peter Adjaye on soundscaping Toyin Ojih Odutola’s ‘A Countervailing Theory’

  By Ellen Addis on 27 August , 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  Peter Adjaye is a contemporary conceptual sound artist, specialising in cross disciplinary collaborations. He is a musicologist, composer, DJ-producer and musician. His unique set of skills and vast experience have enabled him to work closely with his brother, the award-winning… Read More ›

• Caine Prize 2020: “Every day is today”: A Review of Rémy Ngamije’s “The Neighbourhood Watch”

  By Ellen Addis on 10 July , 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  AiW Note: AiW’s annual review series of what is now the AKO Caine Prize is back. We’ve been talking about prize culture for a long time at Africa in Words; Kate Wallis’s post on our joining the Caine Prize “blogathon” back… Read More ›

• Review – An Artist’s Awakening: Two Women in One by Nawal El Saadawi

  By Ellen Addis on 2 March , 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  Following on from our review of Saqi Books’  2020 reprint of Nawal El Saadawi’s The Fall of the Imam (first published in 1987), ‘A Dizzying Tale of Duality’, we are now reviewing the second in our series of their re-releases,… Read More ›

• A Dizzying Tale of Duality: A Review of Nawal El Saadawi’s The Fall of the Imam.

  By Ellen Addis on 3 February , 2020 • ( 4 )

  

  A girl is chased through the night with her dog, looking for her mother in the dark, until something strikes her from behind. The girl—whose name is Bint Allah, meaning ‘Daughter of God’— falls, and asks the persecutors following her:… Read More ›

• Caine Prize 2019 Shortlist: A Review of Meron Hadero’s “The Wall”

  By Ellen Addis on 28 June , 2019 • ( 0 )

  

  AiW’s annual Caine Prize review series is back with this, the second in our reviews of the five shortlisted stories for 2019. In the spirit of our broader and longer conversations about prize culture at Africa in Words – Kate Wallis… Read More ›