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Author of ‘Food Sovereignty vs Food Security: The Future of Yam Farming in Nigeria’ Ayoola Oladipupo, reveals his next writing project. Oladipupo is working on ‘a collection of essays on food culture in Nigeria—investigating some of the spaces where food is eaten across Nigeria, the creators of these spaces and how they persist.’
I had quite a lot of anger against the world which I didn’t know what to do with, so I started reading books from the Heinemann Africa Writers Series.
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About the Author
is a management consultant based in Lagos with a keen interest in food culture, studying the impact of colonization and neo-colonization on the interplay between food choices and identity. His writing has featured in Africa Is a Country and Nigeria Health Watch.
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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