Central Africa
Your guide to the essential ideas, trends, people and stories shaping Central Africa.
Latest
Popular
Our latest issue, 100 Years of Ladi Kwali: Stories from Another Nigeria, celebrates Kwali’s artistic legacy and shines a light on the Nigeria that often goes unseen and unheard. Spanning all six geopolitical zones, this magazine uncovers the deeper worlds that sustain Nigeria’s creativity, resilience and hope.
While Helon Habila folds history into each page of Measuring Time, he preserves an essence of what it means to be Nigerian through food, and most vividly through àkàrà.
The excited Ebora dropped the ash into the petrol puddle…The tangle ignited into a tower of fire made up of several explosions, and thunderclaps that went on and on and on. The surrounding forest shook, and the earth groaned and turned.
For the co-founder and publishing director, of Cassava Republic Press, which marks its 20th anniversary this year, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, it is telling that African literature is often pronounced dead in recent years, when more women and queer voices are becoming more prominent: ‘The loudest obituary writers about African literature tend to be men. These elegies seem to come from a tacit sense of personal or generational displacement rather than from the actual state of the field.’
Advertisement
Explore by Region
100 Years of Ladi Kwali
Our latest issue, 100 Years of Ladi Kwali: Stories from Another Nigeria, celebrates Kwali’s artistic legacy and shines a light on the Nigeria that often goes unseen and unheard. Spanning all six geopolitical zones, this magazine uncovers the deeper worlds that sustain Nigeria’s creativity, resilience and hope.
Eating With Helon Habila
While Helon Habila folds history into each page of Measuring Time, he preserves an essence of what it means to be Nigerian through food, and most vividly through àkàrà.
On the Road to Ogbomosho and Oyo
The excited Ebora dropped the ash into the petrol puddle…The tangle ignited into a tower of fire made up of several explosions, and thunderclaps that went on and on and on. The surrounding forest shook, and the earth groaned and turned.
‘Literature Is One of Our Most Powerful Archival Machines’
For the co-founder and publishing director, of Cassava Republic Press, which marks its 20th anniversary this year, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, it is telling that African literature is often pronounced dead in recent years, when more women and queer voices are becoming more prominent: ‘The loudest obituary writers about African literature tend to be men. These elegies seem to come from a tacit sense of personal or generational displacement rather than from the actual state of the field.’
What Endures in Borno Are the People
Boko Haram terrorism fits into a longer pattern of insurgency in Borno. Civilians survive through collective resistance, negotiation and uneasy compliance, and ‘peace’ in wartime is often shaped by tragic trade-offs.
Why Igbos Still Take the Long Road Home
Every December, thousands of Igbo travellers leave cities across Nigeria for the South East, a ritual shaped by war, migration and an enduring sense of home. Now, rising insecurity is forcing travellers to assess what returning truly means.
100 Years of Ladi Kwali
Our latest issue, 100 Years of Ladi Kwali: Stories from Another Nigeria, celebrates Kwali’s artistic legacy and shines a light on the Nigeria that often goes unseen and unheard. Spanning all six geopolitical zones, this magazine uncovers the deeper worlds that sustain Nigeria’s creativity, resilience and hope.
Eating With Helon Habila
While Helon Habila folds history into each page of Measuring Time, he preserves an essence of what it means to be Nigerian through food, and most vividly through àkàrà.
On the Road to Ogbomosho and Oyo
The excited Ebora dropped the ash into the petrol puddle…The tangle ignited into a tower of fire made up of several explosions, and thunderclaps that went on and on and on. The surrounding forest shook, and the earth groaned and turned.
‘Literature Is One of Our Most Powerful Archival Machines’
For the co-founder and publishing director, of Cassava Republic Press, which marks its 20th anniversary this year, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, it is telling that African literature is often pronounced dead in recent years, when more women and queer voices are becoming more prominent: ‘The loudest obituary writers about African literature tend to be men. These elegies seem to come from a tacit sense of personal or generational displacement rather than from the actual state of the field.’
What Endures in Borno Are the People
Boko Haram terrorism fits into a longer pattern of insurgency in Borno. Civilians survive through collective resistance, negotiation and uneasy compliance, and ‘peace’ in wartime is often shaped by tragic trade-offs.
Why Igbos Still Take the Long Road Home
Every December, thousands of Igbo travellers leave cities across Nigeria for the South East, a ritual shaped by war, migration and an enduring sense of home. Now, rising insecurity is forcing travellers to assess what returning truly means.
Find more
‘Literature Teaches a Nation to Know Itself’
Nigerian poet, novelist and author of Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Broken-Hearted, Ben Okri, argues that Nigerian literature doesn’t always have to be about Nigeria: ‘Nigerian literature limits itself to Nigeria and then limits even the ways in which the country can be written about. What we want is a vast literature, a great literature…that speaks to all humanity.’
