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 ›
Reviews – Events
Caine Prize 2019 Shortlist: A Review of Tochukwo Okafor’s “All Our Lives”
Managing Editor Kristen Stern closes out our annual Caine Prize review series this year, a series which dates back to the blog’s early days and the collective spirit of the “Caine Prize blogathon“. Check out our other reviews of this… Read More ›
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 ›
Caine Prize 2019 Shortlist: A Review of Meron Hadero’s “The Wall”
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 ›
Caine Prize 2019 Shortlist: A Review of Ngwah-Mbo Nana Nkweti’s “It Takes A Village Some Say”
AiW’s annual Caine Prize review series is back. We’ve been talking about prize culture for a long time at Africa in Words; Kate Wallis started off this series in 2013. In the coming days we are featuring reviews of the stories… Read More ›
‘Graduating to genre’: Marlon James in person and on the page
“What does it mean when you don’t think you have a mythology?” Marlon James is increasingly preoccupied by legacy. “I return to Greek tragedy before every book I write. I look for answers and Greek tragedy provides them. Or, better… Read More ›
Gaël Faye in Conversation: A Review
AiW Guest: Akua Banful. I walked into the large room on the second floor of Albertine, the French consulate affiliated bookstore in New York, and immediately felt the energy and anticipation of the crowd. The old, the young, the francophone… Read More ›
Conserving culture and pushing boundaries in Somaliland: Hargeysa International Book Fair 2018
AiW Guest: Caitlin Pearson, Africa Writes Go through the gates of the Xaranta Dhaqanka, the Hargeysa Cultural Centre in Somaliland’s capital, and you’ll encounter a courtyard of small buildings. To your right is the Cultural Centre’s library, housing a wide-ranging… Read More ›
“Reading is a collective pursuit”: Open Book Festival Review
AiW Guest: Megan Ross. Before I write this review I’ll… Share my Open Book diet Too. Much. Caffeine. All the dry red at the Fugard bar. Half a bottle of single malt whiskey (and its accompanying hangover) that Helene Prinsloo… Read More ›
‘The archive of my life’: The UK pre-launch of Akwaeke Emezi’s autobiographical novel ‘Freshwater’ at Africa Writes 2018
AiW Guest: Sana Goyal. It’s the Saturday afternoon of the Africa Writes weekend in London — the 2018 edition. Sitting in the second row of the Auditorium at the British Library, I hear several excitable voices over my shoulder. And… Read More ›
A People-centred Approach to Literary Activism in 21st Century Africa: Nii Ayikwei Parkes on Arts Management and Literary Activism at Writivism 2017
AiW Guest Madhu Krishnan. AiW note: This week in the run up to the 2018 Writivism festival, the Arts Managers and Literary Activists Network (AMLA) hosted their third annual workshop bringing together early career academics and Africa-centered literary producers. It… Read More ›
Building an Archive – Voices from the Panel “Loving Womxn: Deliberate and Afraid of Nothing” at the 2018 Africa Writes Festival
AiW Guest: Katarzyna Kubin. It was the second day of the Africa Writes Festival, a week ahead of Black Pride. The heatwave beat on in London whilst, in the British Library, the animated festival crowd buzzed and mingled to and… Read More ›
Flexible Forms and Publics: Moradewun Adejunmobi and Stacy Hardy on Small Magazines
AiW Guest Penny Cartwright A place for ‘extended curiosity, new adventures, critical thinking, daydreaming, socio-political involvement, partying and random perusal’: so Stacy Hardy, of South Africa’s Chimurenga, imagines the small magazine. Speaking as part of a closing keynote conversation hosted… Read More ›
Archiving Small Magazines: AWA Digitisation and Exhibition in Montpelier
AiW Guest Aurélie Journo AiW note: This Guest post is part of a series of articles publishing on Africa in Words that come out of conversations between a new interdisciplinary network of researchers and literary producers examining the circulation and production… Read More ›
Finding Fictions, Forging a Feminist Fantastic: Reflections on ‘This F-Word’, the 5th edition of the Aké Arts and Book Festival (Abeokuta, 14-18 November, 2017)
By Matthew Lecznar Last November, I had the pleasure of attending the 5th edition of the Aké Arts and Book Festival. Organised by the Lagos-based Book Buzz Foundation, Aké is a five-day cultural extravaganza that takes place in and around… Read More ›
Review: African Roads (‘L’Afrique des routes’) exhibition
AiW Guest Connor Pruss. The Quai Branly Museum (Musée du Quai Branly) in Paris currently features the exhibition “African Roads (‘L’Afrique des routes’)” from Jan. 31st – Nov. 12th, 2017. In the introduction, the curators propose to challenge the preconception… Read More ›
Q&A: The Importance of Writing and the Benefits of Travel – An interview with Iman Verjee at Open Book 2017.
AiW Guest: Katarzyna Kubin. Iman Verjee is a novelist living in Nairobi, Kenya with two novels published by the award-winning independent, Oneworld Publications: Who will Catch us as we Fall (2016) and In Between Dreams (2014). Both novels were promoted… Read More ›
Voices from the Seventh Edition of the Open Book Festival, Cape Town, 2017.
AiW Guest: Katarzyna Kubin. One of the most exciting, world-class literary events, the Open Book Festival, takes place annually at the start of spring in Cape Town, South Africa, spear-headed by the independent bookshop, The Book Lounge, and the renowned Fugard… Read More ›
Okey Ndibe’s orchestra
AiW Guest: Pelu Awofeso “I am a student of Chinua Achebe,” Okey Ndibe says near the end of his reading at University of Lagos’ Faculty of Arts last July. “But as a writer, my temperament is between [Wole] Soyinka, Achebe… Read More ›
The global concerns of southern African photography
AiW Guest: Oyedepo Olukotun It is interesting to observe that a number of the 2017 summer exhibitions in London, UK, have coalesced around the storyline of Blackness. On the forefront with this storyline is Tate Modern’s Soul of a Nation:… Read More ›
