AiW Guests: Koleka Putuma Interviewed by: Siobhan Bahl, Freya Moulton and Tessa Rhodes On 22 February, 2022 “This is what it is, or what it was, this is the evolution of it all…” Koleka Putuma is an esteemed South African… Read More ›
Katie Reid
Archives spotlight – Past & Present: Maryse Condé – ‘Segu’ and ‘The History of the Cannibal Woman’
Our #PastAndPresent archive dip today spotlights writer Maryse Condé (11 February 1934 – 2 April 2024), as her work and legacy is threaded through our archive posts. Two ‘couplets’ of reference emerge, set into conversation with each other as they… Read More ›
Review: Connection and Legacy – Remembering ‘Before Them, We’ (2022)
AiW Guest: Virginia Kelly Before Them, We (flipped eye, London, 2022) is a beautiful anthology of poems and collection of photographs curated by Ruth Sutoyé and Jacob Sam-La Rose. Part of a longer interdisciplinary project to excavate the lives and… Read More ›
Words on…Past & Present: The International Black Speculative Writing Festival (London & Remote)
Just under a week to go, with the last chance saloon doors swinging, we are dipping in to our archives: this AiW #PastAndPresent post may look back but has our sights set firmly forward to the Digital Festival Day (04… Read More ›
Q&A: Words on… e-Kitabu – the Rights Café, Nairobi International Book Fair
AiW note: With thanks to Catalyst Press who have worked with us to bring you this twinned Q&A… “With increasing global focus on African writing, this new initiative aims to open networks on the continent and to get African writing… Read More ›
Q&A: Words on… Ambassadors at the Rights Café, Nairobi International Book Fair
AiW note: With thanks to Catalyst Press who have worked with us to bring you this twinned Q&A… “With increasing global focus on African writing, this new initiative aims to open networks on the continent and to get African writing… Read More ›
Review: Tragedy and Resilience in Lagos – The Truth About Sadia by Lola Akande
AiW Guest: Ademola Adesola. Lola Akande’s latest novel, The Truth about Sadia (Tunmike Publishers, 2023), follows Sadia Onaolapo Oyelowo’s journey from childhood to adulthood. Set in a recognizable Lagos, Nigeria, so crucial is Sadia to the novel that every “truth”… Read More ›
Q&As: Mame Bougouma Diene and Woppa Diallo – Caine Prize shortlist 2023 – winners
AiW note: Today is the last in our series of twinned Caine Prize shortlist 2023 interviews we have been running through the week. A month ago yesterday, on the 2nd October, Senegalese entrant, ‘A Soul of Small Places’ , by… Read More ›
Q&As: Tlotlo Tsamaase – Caine Prize shortlist 2023
AiW note: The penultimate day in our continuing Words on… Q&A series this week – a range of interviews around the UK-based short story award, the Caine Prize for African Writing, 2023 – sees writer Tlotlo Tsamaase (Botswana) talk with… Read More ›
Q&As: Eli Goldman (Editor) – Publishing the Caine Prize shortlist 2023
AiW note: This is the penultimate day in our continuing Words on… Q&A series this week, a range of interviews around the shortlist for UK-based short story award, the Caine Prize for African Writing, 2023. In the lead up to… Read More ›
Q&As: Yejide Kilanko – Caine Prize shortlist 2023
AiW note: We’re going into day 2 in our continuing Words on… Q&A series this week, publishing a range of interviews around the UK-based short story award, the Caine Prize for African Writing, 2023. A few firsts have re-shaped the… Read More ›
Q&As: Kadija George Sesay – Judging the Caine Prize 2023
AiW note: We’re into day 2 in our continuing Words on… Q&A series this week, publishing a range of interviews around the UK-based short story award, the Caine Prize for African Writing, 2023. A few firsts have re-shaped the Prize… Read More ›
Q&As: Yvonne Kusiima – Caine Prize shortlist 2023
AiW note: Continuing our new Words on… Q&A series, this week, we are publishing a range of interviews around the UK-based short story award, the Caine Prize for African Writing, 2023. There have been a few notable firsts that have… Read More ›
Words on… Poetry Africa, with Lethu Nkwanyana, South African Slam Champion 2023
Poetry Africa announces the South Africa Poetry Slam Champion on Instagram. AiW note: This post in the “Words on… Poetry Africa” Q&A series is brought to you in collaboration with the Poetry Africa festival 2023, and is with the Festival’s… Read More ›
Words on… Poetry Africa 2023, with Indigene ‘Gene’ Corefio
AiW note: This marks the latest in our new “Words on… Poetry Africa” Q&A series, brought to you in collaboration with the Poetry Africa festival 2023, which is running this year across 3 cities (Johannesburg, Durban, Bloemfontein) from the 5th… Read More ›
Words on… Poetry Africa 2023, with Solly Ramatswi, aka Soetry
AiW note: This is the second in our new “Words on…” Q&A series in collaboration with Poetry Africa 2023. Taking place from the 5th to the 17th October, this year across the three South African cities (Johannesburg, Durban and Bloemfontein),… Read More ›
Words on… Poetry Africa 2023, with Featured Poet, Eugene Skeef
AiW note: We’re delighted to share a range of new “Words on…” Q&As in collaboration with Poetry Africa. The 5th October marked the start of this year’s, the 27th, Poetry Africa festival: Poetry Africa is an annual international poetry festival curated… Read More ›
Spotlight on… Die Antwoord: the artifice of art, the art of artifice
AiW Guest: Sanya Osha …with a longer form read for us, at around 2.5k words… The recent ‘cancellation’ of Die Antwoord – the South African ‘zef’ subculture-proclaiming, alternative hip hop duo – and their subsequent withdrawal from the public eye,… Read More ›
Review: Between Self and Selflessness in Protest – ‘Taduno’s Song’ by Odafe Atogun
AiW Guest: Tọ́pẹ́-ẸniỌbańkẹ́ Adégòkè. Odafe Atogun’s début novel, Taduno’s Song (2016), is an extended allegory about a people living through the tangle of social oppression and its attendant anxieties. Through a focus on music, specifically voice and song, it explores… Read More ›
Q&A: Serawit Bekele Debele —Literatures of the Horn of Africa, a conversation series
AiW Guests Interviewers: Farida Elshafei, Ilana Graham, Lauryn Jenkins, Noha Choudhry. Interviewee: Serawit Bekele Debele. Interview Date: 14th December 2021 AiW note: This is one in a series of interviews carried out by undergraduate students as part of the module… Read More ›