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.
“I wanted to write about how black societies could evolve without white hegemony”: A conversation with Okezie Nwọka
Okezie Nwọka on what and who inspired God of Mercy, the difficulties of duality, and adapting Igbo language and culture for the foreign page.
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
From the sticky facets of girlhood and the concrete heights of a North Peckham estate to the azure shores of the Zambezi River, these poetry collections instruct us to continually look at our experiences through a multifaceted and human lens.
10 Classic Epic Poems from the Black Atlantic
So begins the project of chronologising and mapping the epos of the Black Atlantic across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
“I needed to write a book that reflected reality”: A conversation with Lọlá Ákínmádé Åkerström
Lola Ákínmádé Åkerström talks freely about how In Every Mirror She’s Black upends mainstream ideas about Nordic society, her difficult journey to publication, and writing Black women.
“This book was the way to offer a kind of solidarity”: A conversation with Emmanuel Iduma
A Stranger's Pose is a dreamy travelogue and memoir through west and north Africa that explores the nature of estrangement, identity, and grief.
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 grew up obsessed with this alternate version of myself”: A conversation with Safia Elhillo
Safia Elhillo on the inspiration behind Home is Not a Country, her roots, and writing a world that reflects the one she grew up in.
“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.
15 Coming-of-Age Novels in English Translation
From Brazil and Haiti to Rwanda and Madagascar, travel the world via this list of coming-of-age novels in English translation.