Everyone expects us to fail, and to succeed is to be the exception. The space between renders us unremarkable.
Literary fiction
5 Fun Facts with Lizzie Damilola Blackburn
From the blog post that inspired her to Yinka’s abiding love for her local chicken shop, Lizzie Damilola Blackburn gives us five fun facts about one of the first Black British romantic comedies.
“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 is 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 Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s great Ugandan novel shows us other ways of knowing
It may surprise a few to know that Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi's debut, a now-established classic of African literature, was rejected by British publishers for being ‘too African’.
“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.
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’m writing the stories I need to write”: A conversation with Dean Atta
Dean Atta is bright and bubbly, talking effusively about his writing and bouncing between topics with that palpable joy that is so characteristic of his work.
Nadifa Mohamed’s The Fortune Men centres humanity in the midst of tragedy and injustice
The Fortune Men is a historical fiction set in 1950s Cardiff that explores the real and distressing story of Mahmood Mattan, the last man to be hanged in Wales.
Accra Noir: Crime in a city of stories, legends, and allegories
Edited by Nana-Ama Danquah, Accra Noir's writers spin a complex and fantastical web of love, intrigue, drama, and crime.
“I am not a planner”: A conversation with Chibundu Onuzo
Chibundu Onuzo on her relationship to writing as a profession, what it's like for a non-planner to fashion a novel out of a PhD, and how Sankofa relates to the cultural coordinates that orient it in modern-day Ghana.
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.
“I learned to read between the lines”: A conversation with Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa
Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa's pioneering novels have put Afro-Latinx history on the literary map. She shares her inspirations and expands on the power of historical fiction.