AiW Guest: Ugochukwu Anadị. ‘Femi Morgan’s most recent collection The Year of Fire (Baron’s Cafe, 2021) is a poetry of lamentations, of anger, and of defiant resilience. Forming itself around (re)negotiations, of the self and space, the slim volume of… Read More ›
Reviews & Spotlights on…
Review and Q&A: Leila Abouleila’s ‘River Spirit’ – Rewriting the Footnotes of Sudanese Colonial History
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 Q&A: with author Ever Obi – Some Angels Don’t See God (2022)
AiW Guests: Tọ́pẹ́-ẸniỌbańkẹ́ Adégòkè with author Ever Obi. This Q&A and twinned review, “The Past Is Never Dead” – both by our AiW Guest, traveller, literary critic and writer Tọ́pẹ́-ẸniỌbańkẹ́ Adégòkè – may contain spoilers, but these are kept to the… Read More ›
Review: The Past Is Never Dead – Ever Obi’s ‘Some Angels Don’t See God’
AiW Guest: Tọ́pẹ́-ẸniỌbańkẹ́ Adégòkè. AiW note: Our Guest Reviewer,Tọ́pẹ́-ẸniỌbańkẹ́ Adégòkè, reviews Ever Obi’s second novel, a book which tackles the difficult and taboo subjects entangled around incestuous child sexuality in the home. Accompanying the review today is Adégòkè’s Q&A with… Read More ›
Spotlight on… Afrobeats ascendant – into 2023
AiW Guest: Sanya Osha. Afrobeats is arguably a musical genre that initially evolved tied to the apron strings, albeit tenuously, of the magnificent legacy of Nigeria’s Fela Kuti – but one that has nonetheless managed to find its own direction… Read More ›
Review: “What of This Fire, What of Butterflies?” – Yellow Means Stay, the 2020 Afritondo Prize Anthology
AiW note: Afritondo is a media and publishing platform which aims to improve diversity in publishing by offering African and Black minority writers a platform on which to tell their stories. Afritondo publishes stories, essays, commentaries, and poems by established,… Read More ›
Refocusing Le Retour: Three Franco-Senegalese Works
AiW Guest: Sebastian Boivin. In an increasingly dynamic and interconnected geopolitical and socioeconomic landscape, so many of us think about the journey of migrants; fewer about their return. Work regarding the topic, including in francophone text from Africa, has focused… Read More ›
Review: “too much water”? Sarah Lubala’s ‘A History of Disappearance’
Retelling her experience of meeting a Nigerian man on a crowded street in Hong Kong, the persona in Sarah Lubala’s “I am never more black”, from her 37-strong debut poetry collection A History of Disappearance (2022), concludes that “we are… Read More ›
Review: “Growing up lesbian in Nigeria”: Unoma Azuah’s “Embracing My Shadow”
AiW Guest: Pernille Nailor. Written in a clear and powerful language that commands our immediate attention, Unoma Azuah’s latest publication, Embracing My Shadow, is a moving and powerful memoir focusing on the author’s experiences of growing up as lesbian in… Read More ›
Review: “What language is he speaking?” – Musicians Abroad in Jamal Mahjoub’s ‘The Fugitives’
AiW Guest: Camilla Delhanty Jamal Mahjoub’s The Fugitives (Canongate, 2021) is a novel in three parts, detailing the reformation of the fictional Khartoum jazz band, the Kamanga Kings. We open with protagonist, Rushdy, son of a late member of the… Read More ›
The illusion of choice: a review of “Five Years Next Sunday” by Idza Luhumyo – AKO Caine Prize shortlist 2022 reviews
AiW Guest: Yamikani Mlangiza (Malawi) AiW note: Today’s post is the fifth in our annual guest reviews of the 2022 AKO Caine Prize 5 shortlisted stories. We’ll also be publishing Q&As with the shortlisted authors and, as in our previous years… Read More ›
“Sacks tied around our necks”: Joshua Chizoma’s ‘Collector of Memories’ – AKO Caine Prize shortlist 2022 reviews
AiW Guest: Innocent Akilimale Ngulube (Malawi) AiW note: The penultimate in our annual guest reviews of the 2022 AKO Caine Prize 5 shortlisted stories runs today. We’ll also be publishing Q&As with authors and others working with this year’s Prize,… Read More ›
‘Till Death Do Us Part’: A Review of ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ by Nana-Ama Danquah – AKO Caine Prize shortlist 2022 reviews
AiW Guest: Joseph Kwanya (Kenya) Today’s post is the third of our annual guest reviews of the 5 stories shortlisted for the award in 2022. We’ll also be running Q&As with authors and others working with this year’s Prize, all… Read More ›
The glue that binds: Hannah Giorgis’ “A Double-Edged Inheritance” – AKO Caine Prize shortlist 2022 reviews
AiW Guest: Megan Brune (South Africa) AiW note: we’ve been holding a series of critical conversations around the work of the Caine Prize, now the AKO Caine Prize, each year since we first joined its “blogathon carnival” back in 2013…. Read More ›
Victims and Prey: The Agency of the Body Merchants in Billie McTernan’s “The Labadi Sunshine Bar”- AKO Caine Prize shortlist 2022 reviews
AiW Guest: Nnaemeka Ezema (Nigeria) AiW note: we’ve been holding a series of critical conversations around the work of the Caine Prize, now the AKO Caine Prize, each year since we first joined its “blogathon carnival” back in 2013. Today… Read More ›
Review: “An Odyssean coming-of-age” – A Long Way from Douala by Max Lobe
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 ›
“Our discomfort, my discomfort”: a review of ‘Anxious Joburg: The Inner Lives of a Global City’.
AiW Guest: Kagiso Nko. It is part of how Joburg narrates itself, in particular to itself. Editors’ Introduction – Nicky Falkof and Cobus van Staden. AiW note: This review of Anxious Joburg (Wits UP) was completed before our accompanying Review… Read More ›
Spotlight on… Ola Rotimi: The Revival of a Humanist
AiW Guest: Sanya Osha.With Osha’s Words on the Times – a Q&A subset inititated to connect us up in our experiences of the pandemic – below… Ola Rotimi is a major Nigerian dramatist who passed away in 2000. Some of… Read More ›
Review~ Revisiting Home: Language and Identity in Akosua Zimba Afiriyie-Hwedie’s ‘Born in a Second Language’
AiW Guest Victor Zuze. Akosua Zimba Afiriyie-Hwedie’s chapbook, Born in a Second Language (Button Poetry, July 2021), proves to be rich and complete. This owes to her storytelling prowess. She does not waste words. Her lines are suffused with striking… Read More ›
AiW long read: Caine 2021 – A prize coming of age
AiW Guest: Doseline Kiguru AiW note: As with every year since “Joining the Caine Prize ‘Blog-Carnival’” back in 2013 — Africa in Words has engaged with the AKO Caine Prize for African Writers in the run up to the winner… Read More ›