A review of Izang Alexander Haruna’s ‘Letters to 42 Writers’
I read novels the way some people listen to rap, half-focused, following the rhythm until something stops me cold. A phrase. A character who reminds me of someone I knew once, or thought I knew, or dreamed about. This is not efficient. But efficiency has never been the point of reading. So, there I was, […]
Oba Ladoja, Ibadanland, and lessons from Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones, the first in the series of A Song of Ice and Fire written by American writer George R. R. Martin and published in 1996, is a fantasy realism novel set between 298 AC and 305 AC. Although I have not read Game of Thrones, I have watched and rewatched the television series […]
When gods stumble among us: A review of Oyin Olugbile’s Sanya
I once spent an afternoon at Iyanoba, skimming through the collection of those people who sell books on the ground. They would pick one open space, arrange the books on the ground, the kind where the books lean against each other like tired commuters on a danfo. The owner, a man who claimed to have […]
What you can afford to lose: A review of Aliyu Yakubu’s Abandoned
The orange cat arrived on the same Wednesday as Aliyu Yakubu’s Abandoned. Every morning, at seven, it sits by my compound’s gate, waiting for what? Food, shelter, and someone who will never return. Yesterday, I wondered if it had read these stories, because it understands something most of us forget — that what you are […]
Feeding Guinness World Records with Hilda Baci’s jollof rice
Guinness World Records, founded in 1955, is a British reference book that publishes world records of human achievements and the extremes of the natural world. It is published in about 100 countries and in 40 languages, and maintains over 53,000 records in its database, with its international franchise now including television series and museums. Hilda […]
On Nikki May’s This Motherless Land
Last Sunday evening, I closed Nikki May’s This Motherless Land with the peculiar feeling that I had just witnessed something between a family autopsy and a resurrection ceremony. There was that quality you find in certain Lagos afternoons when the harmattan dust settles and you can suddenly see clear to Victoria Island — except what […]
Who wants to make it big like Femi Otedola?
It was reported this year that approximately five per cent of Nigerians have more than N500,000 in their bank accounts. This same year, the World Bank, in its latest report, predicted that poverty in the country would continue to rise in the coming years, potentially reaching 56 per cent by 2027. Sadly, this is not […]
On Chigozie Obioma’s ‘The Road to the Country’
I have been thinking about wells lately. Not the kind you draw water from, but the other kind — the deep, dark spaces where we throw things we do not want to examine too closely. Memory has a way of becoming a well like that, especially when the memories involve things like war, guilt, and […]
The American Dream and Adichie’s ‘Dream Count’: Lessons for African immigrants
What is a dream? Why do we dream? And, when we dream, with our eyes open or closed, how do we count our dreams or, at least, make them count? Do people in America dream different kinds of dreams? The ‘American Dream’, coined by American businessman and historian James Truslow Adams in his 1931 book […]
Fantasies and realities through the lens of literature
In truth, I never realised that being an essayist would demand such uncomfortable honesty — not just about the world, but about the stories we tell ourselves to survive it. Strange, perhaps, that a form devoted to truth should begin with confession, but here we are: I have spent years watching people disappear into smoke, […]