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Head Chef at ÌTÀN Test Kitchen, Michael Elegbede, grew up in a family of chefs. The last book he enjoyed was Life, On The Line by Grant Achatz: ‘I enjoyed and learnt a lot from his journey as a chef and his perseverance through hard times, cooking even while getting treated for a tongue cancer that almost cost him his sense of taste.’
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About the Author
is a contemporary Nigerian chef rediscovering, redefining and reinterpreting ingredients and cuisines around Nigeria in a creative and imaginative way. He is currently working from his test kitchen in Ikoyi, Lagos call ÌTÀN Test Kitchen.
Nigerian novelist, poet and author of Graceland, Chris Abani, does not believe ‘Nigerian literature’ exists as a category: ‘It is a common misconception that there is a fixed category that can be read as essentially “Nigerian literature”. Nigeria has 500 nations, 500 languages and about 2,000 dialects. While culture and language can overlap, the level of diversity is such that Nigerian literature cannot be easily narrowed down.’
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.’
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.’
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