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 ›
Rebecca Jones
Reminder – CFP open for African Studies Association UK 2014 Conference (deadline 25 April)
The ASAUK biennial conference will be held at the University of Sussex this year and will run from 2pm on Tuesday Sept 9th to 3.30 pm on Thursday 11th September 2014. The Sussex Africa Centre is scheduled for its official launch… Read More ›
Mandela, his legacy and its betrayals
Africa in Words will be taking a short break from posting new content over the Christmas period, but we will be back refreshed and raring to go in January. Meanwhile, so you can still get your Africa in Words fix,… Read More ›
Q&A: Uche Peter Umez interviews poet Musa Idris Okpanachi
AiW Guest: Uche Peter Umez. “Ironies and satires provide poetry with a kind of cynical beauty…” Interviewer’s Note: Musa Idris Okpanachi teaches English Linguistics at the Department of English, Federal University, Dutse, Jigawa State, Nigeria. His poems have appeared in Vultures… Read More ›
Travelling and writing Africa from within
These are extremely interesting times for travel writing as a genre; a number of online- and print-based travel projects have been sprung up over recent years, all focusing on Africans travelling within Africa – some within their own countries, and… Read More ›
Ogbeni Femi, and the future of Yoruba oral performance
Femi Amogunla – also known as Femi Kayode and Ogbeni Femi, or ‘Mr Femi’ – is a spoken word poet based in Lagos. In 2012, Femi took part in 30 Nigeria House, a collaboration between Stratford East Theatre and New… Read More ›
Elephants and Metaphors: the Nyamnjoh debate on African anthropology
There’s been an debate going in the pages of Africa Spectrum which we thought might be of interest to some of our readers (hat tip to Stephanie Newell for bringing this to our attention). In 2012, Cape Town-based anthropologist Francis… Read More ›
Spotlight on…Akinwumi Isola
This post is the first in an occasional series of writer profiles, looking especially at those working in African languages. For readers and speakers of Yoruba, Akínwùmí Ìsòlá [pronounced Ishola] needs little introduction. A charismatic and stern-looking figure affectionately nicknamed… Read More ›
Q&A: Travel writer, journalist and publisher Pelu Awofeso
Pelu Awofeso is a travel writer, journalist and publishing entrepreneur based in Lagos, Nigeria. For over ten years Pelu has been travelling across Nigeria and publishing travel writing in newspapers in Nigeria and beyond, and in his own travel books. His… Read More ›
The 5th European Conference on African Studies, Lisbon – review
The 5th annual European Conference on African Studies (ECAS) was held on June 26-29 this year in sunny Lisbon. A biannual affair, ECAS is the big European Africanist jamboree, organised by AEGIS (the Africa-Europe Group for Inter-disciplinary Studies) and was… Read More ›
Sites of Memory, University of Birmingham, 17 February 2013
AiW Guest Rebecca Jones Is memory imagination or plagiarism? Are artists curators or creators of memory? Is memory determined by audience? Do we remember or embroider? – these were some of the questions we sought to explore in a one-day… Read More ›
Extended CFP: ‘Going Local: African Texts and Cultures’, University of Birmingham (due May 10)
PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF DATES: Conference date is Monday 24th June 2013, call for papers closes Friday 10th May 2013. Going Local: African Texts and Cultures. A postgraduate-led conference and workshop at the University of Birmingham, Monday 27th May 2013. Monday… Read More ›
Reflections on the African Studies Association UK conference, University of Leeds, September 2012
AiW Guest Rebecca Jones. 2012’s ASAUK conference at the University of Leeds was my first ever ASAUK conference, and I went anticipating some interesting panels on African literature, hoping to meet fellow scholars of Yoruba, and, to be honest, expecting a… Read More ›