ISSUE 27
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Amatoritsero Ede
Decolonial Aesthetics and the African Writer
It is now a common truism that all art is propaganda. Well, we can presume that this means all art has some ideological purpose, conscious or unconscious; that all art is in that … Read the whole text
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George Elliott Clarke
Homage to Skip James
(pace Al Moritz’s The Garden)
The Depression? Orchestrated pretty ugly indulgences
of contemptuous melodies
due to diminished motor skills
of bony-digit “get-tar” pickers, fidgety pianists,
who had to humble down and join … Read the whole text -
Tade Akin Aina
(Excerpts from the forthcoming collection, “Echoes from the Hills”)1.The Lights of Kigali
In your darkest cloudy nights
I look across your many hills
This City of a million lights
Natural and manmade incandescence.
Perched on one of your … Read the whole text -
Paul Ugor
Review Essay
Theorizing the Transformative and Invisible in Lagos Never Spoils: Nollywood and Nigerian City Life by Connor Ryan
University of Michigan Press, 2023The modern global city has always held great fascination for urban geographers, city planners … Read the whole text
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Candace Fertile
Fiction, Poetry and Essay Reviews
The Circle
by Katherena Vermette
Hamish Hamilton,
272 pages, $32.00
ISBN: 978-0-7352-3965-4It’s not necessary to read The Break (2016) and The Strangers (2021) before reading The Circle, Katherena Vermette’s luminous and heart-breaking … Read the whole text
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Elizabeth Tavella
Poetry Review
Teardrops on the Weser
by Amatoritsero Ede
Winnipeg, MN: Griots Lounge, 2021
64 pp. $20.99With Teardrops on the Weser, Amatoritsero Ede guides his readers on a transformative journey across landscapes and memories bringing to the surface … Read the whole text
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Helon Habila
On Biyi Bandele
Since his unexpected death on 7 August 2022, a lot has been written about Biyi Bandele’s life and work by colleagues, friends, family and fans. How he started his writing career as a precocious 14-year-old, by winning … Read the whole text
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Lawrence Winkler
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Bronwyn Clare Lindsay
Scrambled Egg and Coffee
In a small, redbrick house on a narrow street between John and Union, there live Anne and Robin. They have lived at 25 Severn Avenue for about thirty years. Neither could tell you exactly how … Read the whole text
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John Tavares
The One Percenter
Toyko was tall, over six feet, but she was slender and athletic. Because of her pedigree and the fact that she was usually the tallest woman, or man, wherever she went, she believed much, too much, … Read the whole text