Revisiting the Soyinka-Bọ́lẹ̀kájà Debate
Since the landmark Soyinka-Bọ́lẹ̀kájà debate of the 1980s, African poetry has sparked intense discussions about authenticity and the influence of Western literary traditions and forms on its poets.
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Culture & Society
Négritude Since Wole Soyinka
Despite Wole Soyinka’s engaging, critical views about Négritude, why has the movement remained relevant in shaping Africa’s history, philosophy and literature?
Nnadi Samuel’s Eclectic Gaze
In his poetry chapbook, Nature Knows A Little About Slave Trade, Nnadi Samuel flexes an impressive thematic range, perpending such timeless and timely conditions as social policing, childhood, slave trade, religion as well as sign language.
The Ingenuity of Ayra Starr’s Afropop
On The Year I Turned 21, Ayra Starr proves to be a limitless star—undefined and unconstrained by musical boundaries or rules.
‘My Early Reading Featured a Lot of Religious Texts’ Chukwuebuka Ibeh’s First Draft
Nigerian writer, Chukwuebuka Ibeh, says the reception in Nigeria for his debut novel, Blessings, has been delightfully surprising: ‘I was prepared for much more vitriol, but that hasn’t been the case. I’ve also been amused by the split responses to events in the book, with some people wanting much less of the same thing that others seem to want much more of.’
Fiction as National Memory in the Age of Mass Protests
Considering the 2024 Kenyan Gen Z protest, and the rising discontent among African youths, can literature play the role of lens in times of moral crisis, that too for a population that doesn’t read?
The Exuberance of Rema
What exactly is Rema’s latest album, HEIS? Is it noise, music, rage, rave? Afro rage? Afro metal?
A Moving Reflection on Love, Loss and Childhood
In his debut novel, Loss is an Aftertaste of Memories, Michael Chièdoziém Chúkwúderà offers a deeply moving portrait of a narrator ahead of his time, contemplating childhood through the lens of memory.
Death and the King’s Horseman at the Stratford Festival
The successes and challenges behind the production of one of Nigeria’s most iconic theatre works on a Western stage.
The Coming-of-Age Novel as a Portrait of Nigeria
The bildungsroman is the novel of Nigeria. No other kind of novel captures completely what it means to be Nigerian in the volatile, high-velocity, interconnected world of the twenty-first century.