Leila Mottley bounces into the hotel waiting room to meet me. I waste no time with my questions on Nightcrawling, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022, making this twenty-year-old the youngest author ever to have been nominated.
literary
Why I Write
I write to call their names. The same way we say Breonna, Sandra Bland, George Floyd, Trayvon, Botham Jean, Dante Wright, Nizah Morris. I write in celebration.
The Nail Polish Theory: I broke up with my boyfriend when he started wearing it
For a long time, I thought she’d insulted me. Today I think she was trying to define me. "Pédé" must have been the only word she knew. It was the only word she had.
The Self-Publishing Trials and Triumphs of Chinedu Achebe
It was neither purely a Nigerian immigrant story nor an African American romance—not even an urban tale. Reader, I decided to self-publish.
Finding Freedom in Fallibility with Raven Leilani
Everyone expects us to fail, and to succeed is to be the exception. The space between renders us unremarkable.
Why is there no Igbo translation of Things Fall Apart?
It’s hard to believe that out of 50 translations of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, not one is in the novel’s mother tongue: Igbo.
How this great Ugandan novel shows us other ways of knowing
Where most African literature must harness Western critical acclaim before being celebrated back home, Kintu marks an important first in African literary history.
6 Unforgettable Black Poetry Collections
Six poetry collections that burn, fizz, and flow, confirming what we already know: the future of Black books is excitingly bright.
In Every Mirror She’s Black is the perfect read
Solitude is the real story of In Every Mirror She’s Black, a unique distillation of commercial and literary fiction that ultimately hits like a tragedy.
Shadow Forward: A Review of My Monticello
Who and what are we the product of, and what is the future of this current birthing? I want us to exercise patience as we wait for the arrival of answers.
“I am not a planner”: A conversation with Chibundu Onuzo
Borne out of her doctoral research on the West African Student Union of 1920s London, Sankofa marks a departure from Chibundu Onuzo's first two novels.
Sankofa comes at the right time
Following Welcome to Lagos, Sankofa marks a departure from Lagosian life and tells the story of a mixed-race British woman's search for her long-lost West African father.