Bibliophile and literary curator, Amyn Bawa-Allah, believes that reading doesn’t need a specific purpose to be valuable: ‘A lot of people think that reading, especially leisure reading, is a waste of time, or that if the reading is not explicitly tied to self-improvement, work, or education, it does not hold value.’
At 89, Demas Nwoko invites us to prioritize local community impact over international glamour and to rethink the trajectory of African art and architecture.
In documenting and displaying the intricate cultures of wrapper tying and wrapper wearing in Rivers State, Aleruchi Kinika, the photographer behind the series, ‘Wrappers of Rivers’, says she ‘wanted to tell the story of the wrappers and Rivers people as one.’
Nigerian architect and designer, Tosin Oshinowo, believes that, now more than ever, the growing awareness of the climate crisis makes it imperative for architects to rethink building practices: ‘The next generation of practitioners will likely be better equipped than mine, as sustainability is now a fundamental part of their training and practice. With the right encouragement, we can expect to see meaningful change.’
Nigerian poet and author of ‘The Last Time I Saw My Father’, Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto, believes many African stories are underappreciated: ‘The literary landscape is vast, and countless voices and stories have yet to receive the attention they truly deserve. It is not always about a single book but rather the collective body of work from diverse regions, cultures, and languages.’
Romance writer and author of A Very Gidi Christmas, Tomilola Coco Adeyemo, says her debut novel was an attempt to rewrite the love stories of her loved ones: ‘In my head, I was writing a universe where the things that were wrong in real life became right.’
Ghanaian writer and author of The Rest of You, Maame Blue, says her debut novel, Bad Love, was inspired by own dating experiences at the time of writing: ‘I wanted to explore how first love shapes who we are for everyone else we meet afterwards, and what it means to navigate a relationship for the first time.’
The producer and director of Ebrohimie Road: A Museum of Memory, Kola Tubosun, discusses the making of the documentary and the significance of the setting to Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka’s life.
In our past First Draft interviews, we asked leading African writers to share the books from their countries that everyone should read. Here’s what they told us.
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