AiW Guest: Nduka Otiono, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada AiW note: Yesterday we celebrated the African release of Wreaths for a Wayfarer (Narrative Landscape Press), published in honour of writer, academic, and esteemed beloved mentor and Nigerian public intellectual, Pius Adesanmi, who lost… Read More ›
Poetry
Celebrating World Poetry Day with readings from Wreaths for A Wayfarer
AiW Guests: Nduka Otiono and Uche Peter Umezurike. AiW note: by way of introduction to our Guest post here, we are very pleased to be able to share with the editors news of the African release of Wreaths for a… Read More ›
Q&A with Writer and Publisher Nii Ayikwei Parkes: ‘The thing about any book, anything that’s written, is that it’s the start of a conversation, it’s never the end’
AiW Guests: Lottie McGrath, Charlie Renwick, Eloise Percy-Davis and Tilly Everard. Nii Ayikwei Parkes is an acclaimed British-Ghanaian poet, writer, and publisher. Winner of multiple international awards, Parkes’ work ranges from the reinvention of accounts of slavery with sci-fi undertones… Read More ›
In other Words… AiW news and January’s wrap
It has been a lit first month of 2021! As we move through the changed circumstances, timelines and spaces of now, we catch up on our monthly round-up of ‘other words’ we haven’t had out already on the site –… Read More ›
In other Words… AiW news and November’s wrap
As we move through the changed circumstances, timelines and spaces of now, we catch up on our monthly round-up of ‘other words’ we haven’t had out already on the site – news on AiW’s radar, collated from across our social… Read More ›
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 ›
In other Words… AiW news and October’s wrap
As we move through the changed circumstances, timelines and spaces of now, we catch up on our monthly round-up of ‘other words’ – news on AiW’s radar, collated from across our social media… News Click to jump to: Festivals, Fairs,… Read More ›
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 ›
Creative Times “in the making”: unfolding the Keiskamma COVID-19 Tapestry of Resilience
AiW note: Posts over 5 days this week, have introduced the epic endeavour of the Keiskamma COVID-19 Resilience Tapestry being made by the Keiskamma Art Project in the rural hamlet of Hamburg, South Africa, through the place, the people –… Read More ›
The Fragile Beauty of Mangaliso Buzani’s “A Naked Bone”
In 2019, Mangaliso Buzani’s A Naked Bone won the African Poetry Book Fund’s Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. In a subsequent interview published in Africa in Dialogue, Buzani recalls how, upon hearing the news, he quicky phoned fellow poet and New Brighton resident, Mxolisi Nyezwa. This phone call is one that is particularly apt because when you read A Naked Bone there is, hidden within Buzani’s remarkable and dreamlike poetry, a touch of Nyezwa. There is a fragile sort of beauty that poignantly captures a deeply personal suffering.
In other Words… AiW news and September’s wrap
As we move through the changed circumstances, timelines and spaces of now, we catch up on our monthly round-up of ‘other words’ – news on AiW’s radar, collated from across our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Please be in touch with any other ways and… Read More ›
Celebrating ‘The Decade Project’ with Brittle Paper: 10 AiW African Literary Cultural Faves
Literary blog and archiving platform Brittle Paper turns 10 this year! Happy birthday BP! This month we take up their invitation to join their celebrations in their #DecadeProject with a post marking the last ten years as a significant decade… Read More ›
In other Words… AiW news and July’s wrap
As we move through the changed circumstances, timelines and spaces of now, we catch up on our monthly round-up of ‘other words’ – news on AiW’s radar, collated from across our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Please be in touch with… Read More ›
Words on the Times | #PastAndPresent: Revisiting Kólá Túbòsún and Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike in conversation
AiW note: After our post on the poetry collection Edwardsville by Heart, reviewed for us yesterday by Tade Ipadeola,we are delighted to be able to share Words on the Times with the book’s author, Kọlá Túbọsún, and Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike,… Read More ›
Q&A: Débọ̀ Awẹ́ on his Yoruba-language literary career
Débọ̀ Awẹ́ is a writer, a retired secondary school headteacher and a minister of God in Praise for Christ Ministries International. He is also the CEO of Elyon Publishers, a publishing company in Iléṣà, Ọ̀șun State, Nigeria, where he lives…. Read More ›
“I wish for my poems and music to do away with things I’m sure about. I wish for them to undo me, to unmake me”: Q&A with Petero Kalulé.
AiW Guest: Esther Mirembe. Petero Kalulé is a composer, poet, and multi-instrumentalist. Their music can be bought and listened to via Bandcamp, and their collection of poems Kalimba was published by Guillemot Press in May 2019 – you can buy… Read More ›
Q&A: Deep South’s Robert Berold on Poetry and Publishing in South Africa
Robert Berold is a South African poet and editor, author of four books of poetry and four books of non-fiction. Between 1989 and 1999 he edited the poetry journal New Coin and went on to edit a selection of New… Read More ›
Q&A with writer Olumide Popoola: “If we can’t imagine anything different, we can never strive for change”
AiW note: This conversation follows on from our cast back to last March (2019) and Chelsea Haith’s review of the Q&A’s main text, Popoola’s 2017 novel, When We Speak of Nothing: ‘Experimental…Representative and Complex’ – #PastAndPresent . AiW Guests: René… Read More ›
Event: TJ Dema at Lyra, Bristol Poetry Festival, UK (22 March)
TJ Dema, recent winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry, will be at this year’s Lyra Festival, Bristol’s poetry festival on 22nd March. In a session titled Habitat: An Eco-Poetry Workshop, TJ Dema will lead an engaging… Read More ›
Review – Against conventions: on Femi Morgan’s Renegade (2019)
AiW Guest: Tọ́pẹ́ Salaudeen-Adégòkè. Sometimes, impositions on our spaces and feelings – in the form of law, tradition or custom – try to curtail our inclinations and stifle our freedom of expression. In some nations subject to despotic regimes, restrictions are… Read More ›