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 ›
Ghana
Q&A: George Norman Sylvester – Ananse comics, Captain Pepsodent and African superheroes in 1990s Ghana
AiW Guest: Tessa Pijnaker. This post forms part of an Africa in Words’ series on African superheroes, guest edited by Tessa Pijnaker, PhD student in African Studies and Anthropology at the University of Birmingham. This sixth post in the series… Read More ›
Q&As: Billie McTernan – AKO Caine Prize shortlist 2022
AiW note: Leading up to the winner announcement of the AKO Caine Prize on Monday 18 July, we have been publishing a series of Guest reviews of each of the stories shortlisted in 2022. We have also been sharing a… 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~ 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 ›
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 ›
Q&A with Ayesha Harruna Attah: ‘The Deep Blue Between’
AiW Guests: Trang Vu, Hannah Judge & Naomi Osborne. Ayesha Harruna Attah is a Senegal-based Ghanaian writer. She is the author of Harmattan Rain, Saturday’s Shadows and The Hundred Wells of Salaga and has recently published a young adult novel,… Read More ›
Q&A: Words on the Times – Kwame Osei-Poku
AiW note: Earlier this week we published Kwame Osei-Poku’s review of Limbe to Lagos: Nonfiction From Cameroon and Nigeria (2020, The Mantle). Compiled by Dami Ajayi, Dzekashu MacViban, and Emmanuel Iduma, Limbe to Lagos is an edited collection of non-fiction… Read More ›
Q&A: “Ceremony is always imbued with sound”: Composer Peter Adjaye on soundscaping Toyin Ojih Odutola’s ‘A Countervailing Theory’
Peter Adjaye is a contemporary conceptual sound artist, specialising in cross disciplinary collaborations. He is a musicologist, composer, DJ-producer and musician. His unique set of skills and vast experience have enabled him to work closely with his brother, the award-winning… Read More ›
Exhibition: African Textiles from the Karun Thakar Collection, SOAS (Ends 14 December)
The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London is hosting an exquisite exhibition of ‘African Textiles from the Karun Thakar Collection’, arguably one of the world’s largest private collections of African textiles. Featuring high quality material, that highlights the sophistication of historical… Read More ›
Event: El Anatsui ‘Material Wonder’ Art Exhibition (28 February-6 April)
El Anatsui’s ‘Material Wonder’ At October Gallery, London Opens on Thursday, 28 February October Gallery, now in its 40th year, presents an exhibition of works celebrating the force and creative vision of El Anatsui, an artist who has had a tremendous impact… Read More ›
Event: African Gaze – film posters from Ghana exhibition (SOAS London: Ends 23 March)
African Gaze: Hollywood; Bollywood and Nollywood film posters from Ghana From the Collection of Karun Thakar & the late Mark Shivas At SOAS, Brunei Gallery, London Showing until 23 March 2019 The late 1980s in Ghana saw the emergence of… Read More ›
Events: SCOLMA & ASAUK (Birmingham: 10th & 11th-13th September)
This week is an exciting week in Birmingham, UK, for those interested in African Studies scholarship! SCOLMA Annual Conference Things come together?: Literary archives from, in and for Africa Monday, 10 September 2018 University of Birmingham The day’s programme and… Read More ›
Call for Applications: Research Fellow, University of Warwick (Deadline: 11th June)
The University of Warwick – English and Comparative Literary Studies – invites applications for a Postdoctoral Researcher to work on a Leverhulme-funded research project: “World Literature and Commodity Frontiers: The Ecology of the ‘long’ 20th Century.” This Postdoctoral Research Fellow position… Read More ›
How to Write (and Draw) History in Africa: A Review of Abina and the Important Men
AiW Guest: Tamara Moellenberg The second edition of Trevor R. Getz’s and Liz Clarke’s Abina and the Important Men (OUP, 2016) creates a scholarly ‘forum’ around Abina, a nineteenth-century Ghanaian woman who sought her freedom from slavery through the British… Read More ›
Innovative exhibition puts African cities on the fashion map
AiW Guest: Harriet Hughes Fashion Cities Africa, the first major UK exhibition dedicated to presenting contemporary African Fashion design, opened at Brighton museum in April 2016. The aim of the exhibition is to present the fashion cultures of four African… Read More ›
Us Versus Them: A Review of Safe House
AiW Guest: Jovia Salifu The essays in this anthology, Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction (Dundurn 2016), address the very topics that have made Africa the centre of the world’s attention over the years for all the wrong reasons — disease,… Read More ›
A Journey of Self-Discovery and Love: A Review of Frances Mensah Williams’ From Pasta to Pigfoot
AiW Guest: Jovia Salifu In From Pasta to Pigfoot, Frances Mensah Williams tells a beautiful story of cultural education, self-identity, and love. It is a story of a young black woman whose quest for knowledge about her culture and identity… Read More ›
What do children read?: A Review of ALT 33 Children’s Literature and Story-telling
Following AiW’s Q&A with Professor Emenyonu last week, and to kick-off our summer review series on African children’s literature, Tamara Moellenberg reviews ALT 33: Children’s Literature and Story-telling. AiW Guest: Tamara Moellenberg Children’s Literature and Story-telling, the latest issue of African Literature Today, brings much-needed attention to… Read More ›
Telling the African Story: A Review of Janet Kofi-Tsekpo’s Yellow Iris
AiW Guest: Jovia Salifu This month, Jovia Salifu continues our deep dive into Eight New Generation African Poets. As a lover of poetry, it is always a wonderful feeling to come across beautiful poetry. It is even more exciting when… Read More ›