Latest Posts

The Political Dilemmas of Tanzania’s Music Artists

Karen Chalamilla·October 27, 2024

Owing to stifled freedom of speech coupled with minimal structural support, Tanzanian music artists are finding themselves without any political space beyond praising the ruling government. Read More...

October/November 2024 Tanzania

7 Books That Bring Elderly Characters to Life

Ìjàpá O·October 27, 2024

In our latest book recommendation, we have compiled a list of seven books that bring elderly characters to life. Whether featuring a closeted grandpa in the UK or a sexually liberated seventy-five-year-old Nigerian woman in San Francisco, the books on this list prove that great fiction can centre around elderly characters too! Read More...

October/November 2024 Read Something African Reading

Writers and the Contemporary Books They Believe Will Become Future Classics

Ijapa O·October 25, 2024

In our past First Draft interviews, we asked leading African writers about the contemporary books they believe will become classics in the future. Here’s what they told us. Read More...

First Draft Interviews October/November 2024

How To Wean Nigeria Off The ‘Feeding-Bottle’ Federalism

Doyin Olagunju·October 20, 2024

At the heart of Nigeria’s federalist gambit is the agitation by states for greater control over their local mineral resources. But in a fiscally federal Nigeria, who gets what, when and how? Read More...

Nigeria October/November 2024

The True Cost of Female Agency

Edwin Okolo·October 20, 2024

In her debut collection, Ghostroots, ’Pemi Aguda challenges our assumptions about the complexities of female relationships, heightening the outcomes by casting them in, and sometimes against, a city that is both magnificent and macabre. Read More...

Best of 2024: Essays Nigeria October/November 2024 Reading

Kenya’s Season of Protests

Dennis Mugaa·October 20, 2024

Earlier this year, a new young generation of Kenyans went out to protest a crippling finance bill and a government that is undermining their future. The protests, though met by brutal state violence, have fundamentally shifted the Kenyan political landscape. Read More...

Kenya October/November 2024

Are You Laughing With Us or at Us?

Ugochukwu Damian Okpara·October 19, 2024

When I think of the growing trend of social media skits featuring male comedians who dress up as women, I think especially of the dehumanization of women and everyone who lives outside the rigid ends of the gender spectrum. Should a line be drawn on these performances? Or should we be increasingly unsettled? Read More...

Best of 2024: Essays Nigeria October/November 2024

‘I Hope That My Work Will Never Side with the Oppressor’ Dennis Mugaa’s First Draft

The Republic·October 18, 2024

Kenyan writer and author of Half Portraits Under Water, Dennis Mugaa, believes that President William Ruto’s administration is authoritarian: ‘Young people genuinely want a better country, but we are living in a country that has been slowly sliding into authoritarianism over the past two years, since President Ruto’s government took over. Beyond that, his leadership has been very poor.’ Read More...

First Draft Interviews Kenya October/November 2024

7 Books That Are Time Machines in Disguise

Ìjàpá O·October 17, 2024

In our latest book recommendation, we have compiled a list of seven books that are time machines in disguise. These books will take you from the Nigerian civil war era to pre-apartheid South Africa, and even many centuries back to the expedition that brought the first African to the Americas. Read More...

October/November 2024 Read Something African Reading

Looking for Ken Saro-Wiwa

The Republic·October 14, 2024

The Republic: A Podcast is a narrative podcast series exploring pivotal Nigerian and broader African historical events and figures. In the second season, host Wale Lawal traces the life and legacy of Ken Saro-Wiwa, one of nine non-violent Ogoni activists the General Sani Abacha military government brutally executed in 1995. Read More...

Nigeria October/November 2024

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