Recognising the critical debate that has surrounded it this year and in the past, AiW has followed the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing by Blogging the Caine Prize again this year. Acknowledging the wider conversation, new and regular authors have shared… Read More ›
Reading Reneilwe Malatji’s Love Interrupted in the build up to women’s month in South Africa this August places the text’s significance in particular focus. Marie Claire’s #MCInHer Shoes campaign against gender based violence put male celebrities in high heels in… Read More ›
‘— That house is no ordinary house. Ordinary house, indeed — […] — People say that at night you could hear voices and sometimes cries emanating from that house. Even though no one lives there anymore. — It casts a… Read More ›
Masande Ntshanga’s title invites the reader to consider multiple conceptions of space. It conjures up stories of exploration, which promise adventure, excitement and fear. At the same time, it evokes the spaces we occupy, and suggests ways of thinking, reading… Read More ›
February 14th 2015 marked the publication of the Valentine’s Day Anthology, a collection of short romance stories by seven leading African authors, translated and recorded in different African languages and published by Ankara Press. AiW author Emma Shercliff reflects here… Read More ›
Inspired by Dele Meiji Fatunla and Zahrah Nesbitt-Ahmed‘s list of 50 women writers they believe ‘everyone’ should read, I’m hoping to complete their list of recommendations in 2015. It includes exciting developments in publishing over recent years, as well as many of’the… Read More ›
Geoff Wisner sets himself a sizeable task in ‘African Lives’, to introduce the life-writing of the continent: I don’t envy this anthologist. His introduction makes the case for the long history of autobiographical writing in Africa. Wisner argues it needs to be rescued, to be… Read More ›
Africa in Words Guest Victoria Smith: On 28th January 1955 the Ghanaian song Yaa Nom Montie played for the first time on radio as the theme music of the country’s first literary programme, Singing Net. The song’s composer, J.H. Kwabena… Read More ›
Interview and translation by AiW Guest Ruth Bush Felwine Sarr co-founded Editions Jimsaan in 2012. His co-founders are Boubacar Boris Diop and Nafissatou Dia Diouf, both leading figures in the Senegalese cultural scene. Alongside Jimsaan, which seeks to showcase new writing… Read More ›
My auntie and the headmistress tried as best they could, with smiles and toffee, to shield me from their rising anxiety, but I could feel it bouncing off the quick sideways glances they shot each other and taking flight like… Read More ›
As part of his tour of the UK to promote his novel, Foreign Gods, Inc., journalist, academic and writer Okey Ndibe paid a visit to the University of Sussex earlier this week. As well as being interviewed by locally-based African literature… Read More ›
NEWS (no longer quite breaking): A. Gofer (c/o Steph Newell) has won the inaugural International Aubrey Tearle Proofreader’s Derby (fittingly restlessly re-named from the 2014 Restless Derby). The neck-and-neck runners up are Catharine Morris aka Words and Things, and Kai… Read More ›
Fred Soneka is a novelist living in Freetown, Sierra Leone, who recently published two novels: When The Axe Swings (2012) and Looking for Tanana (2013). When The Axe Swings explores the dynamics of a polygamous marriage as the woodcutter Woody… Read More ›
For more information, and to book your place online, see the African Studies Centre at Oxford.
Book reading and discussion with KGEBETLI MOELE AND RACHEL ZADOK 11TH FEBRUARY 2014, 19H00 GOETHE-INSTITUT, LIBRARY Children are not only young people developing but subjects in their own right. This premise is the starting point to discuss social constructions of… Read More ›
We are organising a conference to commemorate Chinua Achebe’s work and influence, and to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Arrow of God, which many consider Achebe’s greatest novel. The conference will be held at the University of London… Read More ›
AiW Guest: Uche Peter Umez. “the good poem must and should be readable, friendly to the spoken word without being pedantic and pedestrian” Interviewer’s Note: Remi Raji, Nigerian poet, scholar, literary organiser, and cultural activist, is the author of six poetry… Read More ›
Call for Applications: Editorial Assistant Africa in Words (www.africainwords.com) is a successful blog focusing on cultural production and Africa. The blog covers books, art, film, history, music, theatre, ideas and people and the ways they interact, through their publication and circulation,… Read More ›
We’ve had a busy twelve months at AiW, one full of firsts – such as our linked ‘Series’ posts featuring Guest contributors, and the beginnings of our Q&As. The blog has now been running for two years, and we’ve gained new followers… Read More ›
AiW Guest Sara Marzagora. This post is the second in an occasional series of writer profiles, looking especially at those working in African languages. The first post in our series was on Akinwumi Isola. Mengistu Lemma (1928-1988) If you ask… Read More ›
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