Review by Damilare Williams-Shires The directorial debut of renowned Grime MC and budding Renaissance Man Joseph Adenuga Jr, known professionally as Skepta, Tribal Mark, is an ambitious and gripping 24-minute short film that provocatively introduces the world to a future cinematic universe, soon to be populated by anti-heroes and action stars of the Black Secret Read More…
Chigozie Obioma’s “The Road to the Country” emerges as a sweeping narrative set against the backdrop of Nigeria’s civil war. The story centres on Kunle, a university student in Lagos, who embarks on a perilous journey to save his missing brother amid the chaos of conflict. Obioma’s prose, described by The Wall Street Journal as Read More…
Review by Olatoun Gabi-Williams The Woman Next Door is Yewande Omotoso’s comically dark second novel published in 2016 by Random House, South Africa and by Farafina in Nigeria. The story unfolds in what appears to be the first decade of the 21st century against a backdrop of a South Africa in the throes of being Read More…
Review by Olatoun Gabi-Williams The Meursault Investigation” is the dark wonderland Kamel Daoud has created as a searing rejoinder to L’Etranger”, probably the most famous of Albert Camus’ novels. If Camus rejected the word “existentialism” to define his novels, Daoud surely does not. Dealing extravagantly in the currency of existentialism, “The Meursault Investigation” must be Read More…
Review by Olatoun Gabi-Williams Up until “A Woman Alone”, I had not read any of Bessie Head’s books. The image I carried of one of Africa’s finest writers was not of a producer of literary works but of a mixed-race woman in a black-and-white photograph. Her swarthy face would be matronly were it not for Read More…
“A Sunday Affair” is a film that’s best described as a mixed bag. It embraces chaos in its storytelling, which can be both its charm and its downfall. The narrative revolves around a web of infidelity and complex relationships, where cheating is the central theme, and moral dilemmas take a back seat. This approach adds Read More…
Lagos Noir, meticulously edited by Chris Abani and published by Akashic Books in June 2018, is a captivating anthology of thirteen stories that takes readers on a literary journey into the heart of Lagos, Nigeria. With 224 pages of evocative prose, this anthology introduces readers to a city with a population of over 21 million, Read More…
The brilliant curator and artist Sachi Hani-Okoroafor’s exhibition “Infiltration of the Blues” is a testament to the life and variety of contemporary African art. This collection of over 70 paintings and sculptures, brought to life by 13 dynamic young artists, offers a fresh perspective on the multifaceted nature of the African experience. The exhibition, which Read More…
by Uzor Maxim Uzoatu A successful first collection is almost always an impossible act to follow in the annals of poetry. Lyrical poetry at its best tasks inspiration beyond perspiration. In the view of some critics, the great William Wordsworth had the longest decline in English poetry because his classic early flourish could not be Read More…
Nollywood, one of the world’s most active filmmaking industries, churns out hundreds, sometimes thousands, of films each year from the West African country. These films are produced in both English and non-English languages. “Jagun Jagun,” an indigenous war epic, exemplifies the vibrancy of Yoruba-language cinema—a subset of Nollywood rooted in Nigeria’s Western region. It’s now Read More…
