Culture & Society
Enjoy Your Life Lady Donli and the Birth of a Pan-African Rockstar
At first glance, Lady Donli casts a demure figure, as far as self-proclaimed rockstars go. ‘So before I start my shows, right, I do this pledge,’ she says, staring out the window and into the rain in the opening scene of her music video, Cash. Read More...
‘Editing Feels Like Taking Vitamins.’ Ore Ogunbiyi’s First Draft
Author and speechwriter for the Vice President of Nigeria, Ore Ogunbiyi, thinks everyone should read Emmanuel C. Eze’s Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader before leaving university. Read More...
Between Feminism and Islam My Personal Journey from ‘Muslim Feminist’ to ‘Muslimah’
Anyone who truly puts Islam before misogyny would enthusiastically seek to fight for women’s rights in accordance with Islamic principles, without having to identify as a ‘Feminist’. Read More...
‘Writer, Write.’ Moyosore Orimoloye's First Draft
For Moyosore Orimoloye, poet and author of Poet in the Time of Buhari, poetry does more than ‘wrap the mundane in arcane language’; sometimes, poetry gives us ‘“simple” words by which to articulate what we think is a complex experience.’ Read More...
Introducing ‘First Draft’: Our New Column Authors and Prominent Figures on Books, Reading and Writing
Introducing First Draft: a new weekly column about reading, books and writing inspired by questions our editors have had during the course of working with authors. Read More...
The Art of Conversation Proverbs in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart
In Things Fall Apart, Achebe adopts and adapts the English Language as a means of access to Igbo indigenous culture, aesthetics and cosmology. Read More...
‘Na Money Be Fine Bobo’ The Politics of Poor Taste
In the realm of aesthetics, the concept of taste is an implicit class war. In Nigeria, there is a belief that people without money should be focused on necessity and not frivolity. Read More...
Achebe’s Women A Feminist Reading of Things Fall Apart and Anthills of the Savannah
A feminist reading of Achebe's texts is a restoration of the visions of women not only in Africa's past but also in the continent's present and the future. Read More...
We Need New Names Who is the African Writer?
An 'African writer' can either be an African writer or a writer from Africa. One may conflate these terms but the two are distinct. While the former refers to a writer who affirms their African-ness as the source of their art, the latter refers to origin, a writer from Africa. Read More...
Let the Photo be Taken (1974-2017) A Conversation with Mozambican Photojournalist Naita Ussene
This conversation serves as a retrospective on Naita Ussene, as a photographer, and his country, Mozambique, as his muse. Read More...
