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.
For a while now, agony aunt columns in Nigerian media have offered Nigerians some of the most convenient routes for addressing intimate and societal issues, and navigating the complexities of relationships and cultural norms.
The North African novel in English has garnered international accolades and scored representation in the global literary canon, but not yet in the African canon. Why is this still the case?
In his fourth full-length poetry collection, Autobiomythography of, Ayokunle Falomo intertwines his personal and diaspora history with Nigeria’s colonial past, anatomizing the psychological and cultural impacts of colonialism on the Nigerian identity.
In our latest book recommendation, we have compiled a list of books first published ten years ago that you’ll love reading this year. These books, though published ten years ago, remain worth reading today!
Nigerian writer and author of God’s Children Are Broken Little Things, Arinze Ifeakandu, holds the Nigerian government responsible for the anxiety experienced by queer Nigerians in the country: ‘I believed that our ruling class was largely responsible, by entrenching such avoidable hardship, for much of the intimate fractures around us. And that the people’s (and the state’s) obstinate homophobia was to blame for what I considered the “nervous condition” of gay youth.’
Liberian novelist and author of She Would Be King, Wayétu Moore, wants Africans to tell their own stories: ‘A recent book I read portrayed Africa as a uniform experience—overly simplified and stripped of nuance. It reminded me of why it is so important for Africans to tell our own stories, showing the plurality of our voices, our struggles, and our triumphs.’
The Aké Arts & Book Festival is drawing young people from across Nigeria and the African diaspora, fostering connections, and inspiring a vibrant culture of literary growth and creativity.
In a nation like Nigeria that is not so far removed from constant distress and anguish, it is only reasonable that literature, especially from young writers, serves as the analytical medium of these experiences.
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