AiW Guest: Pelu Awofeso After the dust raised in Nigeria by its publication had settled, I finally read There Was a Country, Chinua Achebe’s last published book, which centres on the Nigeria-Biafra civil war and Achebe’s personal experiences of and participation… 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 ›
When I first sat down to review this book I felt resistant. Not My Worst Day is an autobiography that narrates Alex Mvuka Ntung’s childhood and young adulthood in the Great Lakes Region, describing his experiences during the Rwandan Genocide… 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 ›
We eventually got to their house, where I was introduced to a middle-aged women. They all spoke in Efik, I did not understand them. So I became more afraid, thinking that they were planning to eat me. The woman asked… Read More ›
Africa in Words, in association with the African Studies Association UK, Writing Our Legacy and Urbanflo Creative Partnerships, is delighted to present: WRITING EAST AND CENTRAL AFRICA: ACROSS GENRES IN PROSE Readings with authors Billy Kahora, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi and… Read More ›
If you talk to a researcher about their PhD, I have found that there comes a moment when they reveal the ‘hidden’ thesis, the one they didn’t quite write. In history, this is sometimes prevented by archival destruction (recent or ancient),… Read More ›
AiW guest James Smith. Nina Munk’s The Idealist: Jeffery Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty (Random House) isn’t a book only about Jeffery Sachs. It’s a book about the world as we would like it to be, an uncomfortable… Read More ›
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