writer. researcher. editor.
In almost all of Nigeria’s history, this is the standard narrative and the most potent trigger for the japa waves. In this way, Efe, the central character in To Kill a Monkey, is an everyman, an every Nigerian. For the unemployed, or the underemployed, as in the case of Efe, what remains is often a desperate search for an exit route, one that usually leads to crime.
What happens when a 1997 Yoruba classic meets a new generation of heritage learners? In my class, Oleku sparked rich conversations on love, family, and the tug-of-war between tradition and modernity, revealing that some stories remain timeless, even decades later.
A complexly woven narrative, which straddles three West-African countries and goes back and forth between the present and the past, Fire in the Wind narrates Angela’s moving struggle against the overwhelming tide of an unfair fate, aided by a partial society.
Maybe you're broken forever; Or are on a quest to reconcile your selves.
In the heat of the political imbroglio which birthed the notorious operation wetie (operation wet it) in which a lot of arson was committed by supporters of both politicians, there arose different urban legends about Awolowo and Akintola and how they were trying to outdo each other, even with the help of the extraterrestrials, in the supremacy battle.
My immediate reaction to his win bordered on perplexity and would shift to saddening shame, only redeemed somewhat later-later when it was clear that nobody seemed to know the man, except very few whose knowledge of him could never have nudged them to think he'd ever be considered, let alone announced as winner of the Nobel. My own perplexity and shame hinged solely on a realization that I did not encounter Gurnah at all across two degrees pursuits at arguably the most important university in the discourse of African literature.
Dare’s greatest feat, in The Last Wedding Anniversary, could be said to be the way she has masterfully steered the course of its plots, when she could just have settled for an easy, tried and tested, escapist hurtle towards an otherwise anticipated story-end.
Tobi Idowu 