AiW Guest: Camilla Delhanty Jamal Mahjoub’s The Fugitives (Canongate, 2021) is a novel in three parts, detailing the reformation of the fictional Khartoum jazz band, the Kamanga Kings. We open with protagonist, Rushdy, son of a late member of the… Read More ›
Review
Review: “An Odyssean coming-of-age” – A Long Way from Douala by Max Lobe
AiW note: Max Lobe was born in Douala, Cameroon. Last year marked the first publication in English translation of A Long Way from Douala (HopeRoad and Small Axes 2021, translated by Ros Schwartz), a novel which tackles important issues such as… Read More ›
‘Campus Gangsterism’ – A review of Femi Kayode’s “Lightseekers”
AiW Guest Tọ́pẹ́-ẸniỌbańkẹ́ Adégòkè AiW note: Our Guest Reviewer,Tọ́pẹ́-ẸniỌbańkẹ́ Adégòkè, reviews award-winning writer Femi Kayode’s debut novel Lightseekers, which was published by Raven Books and released in February 2021. You can find Adégòkè’s recent Q&A with Kayode here. When four Nigerian students accused of… Read More ›
Review: Billy Kahora’s The Cape Cod Bicycle War and Other Stories (1)
AiW Guest: Ofonime Inyang. AiW note: This week, we bring you two reviews of Billy Kahora’s short story collection, The Cape Cod Bicycle Wars and Other Stories – originally published by Huza Press (Kigali) in 2019 and made available in the US… Read More ›
Here’s My Body, Take it! A Review of Romeo Oriogun’s ‘A Sacrament of Bodies’
AiW Guest: Tikondwe Kaphagawani Chimkowola. Romeo Oriogun’s Sacrament of Bodies (2020) opens with a quote from Kazim Ali that mourns, “in one place everyone looks like me – has my name – I am the most foreign”. This longing for… Read More ›
Call for Submissions: Nalubaale Review (Deadline: 15 June)
We are delighted to share with you that The Nalubaale Review Literary Magazine seeks your submissions on the theme of TRAVEL. You are invited to send your poems, short stories, essays, photos, haikus, articles, legends, local folktales (original language and translations… Read More ›
‘Archive, snapshot, treasure trove’: Review of ‘Voices of Ghana’
AiW Guest: Madhu Krishnan It’s difficult to know where to start with a text like Voices of Ghana: Literary Contributions to the Ghana Broadcasting System 1955-57. Edited by Victoria Ellen Smith, the second edition of this collection of plays, prose… Read More ›
Call for Contributions: ‘The revolutionary left in Sub-Saharan Africa’, ROAPE (Deadline: 01 March)
The Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) is organising a symposium on the following theme: The revolutionary left in Sub-Saharan Africa (1960’s-1970’s): a political and social history to be written Background The reason for this symposium stems from the following… Read More ›
Call for Papers: African Literature Association Conference (New Deadline: 31 January 2019)
We are delighted to share that the deadline for the submission of panel and paper proposals for the 2019 (May 15-18) ALA conference has been extended to Thursday 31 January. ALA conference Columbus May 15-18, 2019 Theme: Institutions of African… Read More ›
‘Strange and unsettling’: Review of ‘Lagos Noir’
Chris Abani‘s introduction to this strange and unsettling collection of noir shorts reveals the essence of the collection’s geographical inspiration: “the unsettled darkness that continues to lurk in the city’s streets, alleys, and waterways.” Lagos is the first African city… Read More ›
Genre, Politics, and Southern Superheroes: Review of Bill Masuku’s Captain South Africa
AiW Guest: Dominic Davies. A little over two years ago I travelled to Cape Town to attend FanCon 2016, an event that was then South Africa’s most attended comics convention to date. As a researcher interested in graphic narratives from… Read More ›
Call for Submissions: Nalubaale Review (Deadline: 30th September)
The Nalubaale Review is a literary magazine based in Uganda. It aims to publish the finest emerging writers in Uganda and all other African countries. The magazine is looking for new short stories, poems, dialogues, articles and papers based on… Read More ›
A Study in Contrast: A Review of Stanley Gazemba’s Forbidden Fruit
AiW Guest: Amanda Anderson Stanley Gazemba’s 2002 novel Forbidden Fruit, previously published in Kenya as The Stone Hills of Maragoli, presents a tightly woven tapestry of human experience. The narrative follows Ombima, a poor man from the small village of… Read More ›
Is your reading really ‘useful’? Maryse Conde in Cape Town
I’ve recently picked up Tim Parks’ collection Where I’m reading from,. The essay, Writing Adrift in the World critiques post-colonial literature studies I tutor students from England, studying, or practising, creative writing. They too now move in an international world… They too have taken… Read More ›
Perhaps you missed (Festive 2013 edition)
Following on from last week’s Mandela retrospective, here are some posts readers may wish to revisit – or discover for the first time from the AiW 2013 archive. If you’re a fan of the ‘best of’ lists that dominate publishing… Read More ›
The Rise of the African Development Confessional?
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 ›
Perhaps you missed…
Spotted around the web: short stories, novels and debate. Bakwa magazine: Why does the West ignore intellectual property when Africa is concerned? What does the New York Times really know about music in Africa? Can hip-hop save an artist’s life?, Fashion:… Read More ›