Not Tonight, I'm Reading by Vashti Harrison via Pinterest

The city is not my birthplace. I came to it as a teenager. Which meant I had contained sentiment for other places before discovering this one. Kaduna is the city of my firsts: first heartbreak, first sex, first self-discovery, first books, first writing, first lies, first horror, first riot, first suicide attempt, first rejection. Maybe what I share with this city is not love.

Screenshot via LitHub

Ayobami Adebayo, Chigozie Obioma, and Romeo Oriogun 'reveal psychologically complex male interiors' in this piece that probes masculinity in their works. While Lucky Grace Isingizwe writes about Small Presses, Creative Writing Workshops & Literary Prizes in Africa, and how 'for emerging African writers, small presses are more than a way to publish your work; they become a lifeline for learning writing craft and building networks that nurture connections and opportunities'. Also read about Edwige-Renee Dro's new library, 1949, focused on women's writing from the continent and diaspora.

I'm keeping pandemic-related reads to a minimum, but must share Ukamaka Olisakwe's honest and heartfelt essay on Motherhood and Mental Health During a Pandemic. As well, as this piece from Sisonke Msimang, Homesick: Notes on lockdown.

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Screenshot via Project 3541

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If you are a black African novelist in the 1960s or 1970s or 1980s or 1990s or early 2000s, you can name a number of writers if you like, you can wax eloquent about the wonders of Shakespeare and Virginia Woolf if it makes you feel good, but everyone - including, no, especially Western publishers and editors and critics - will be waiting for one name. And if you are too prideful to utter it they shall utter it for you, they will hold up your work to the light of Achebe and decide id your work is similar enough to warrant attention.  

This is the case until about 2003.

... as a description of structural tendencies in the American marketplace for Anglophone African fiction, I want to say from the start that he's absolutely right: Big publishers are risk-averse and because publishing is always about speculation from precedent and potential, then past successes will be enormously important and influential ...  

And yet ... Folarin's point is so sharp that it becomes narrow, and there's a begged question that holds together everything that follows: What African fiction has he 'been reading of late'? Who has she been reading and finding wanting?

'Rotten Row' is the street in Harare on which you find the Criminal Division of the Magistrate's Court. The book is made up of twenty stories about crime, seen from different perspectives. I also experiment with different approaches to storytelling: I use a court judgement, an autopsy report, and an  Internet discussion forum, as well as other voices.

... Buchi Emecheta's 'Second Class Citizen', cited by many Nigerian-Brits of a certain age as a tour de force in literacy cinema verite. It was, for me, an alien read in many ways. My parents, my grandparents, and my siblings and I lived very different lives from those depicted in the book, the most notable in the casual cruelty that was inflicted on its protagonist, Adah. Adah is one of those women whose lives would be infinitely better without their terrible husbands. Her triumphs and woes are symptomatic of more than what she is (an immigrant) - they become more spectacular or pitiful because of the space she occupies (cold, grey, and wet London) and the time in which she lives (the overtly racist and not-so-great-for-women-of-any-race 1970s).

Cover art of Buchi Emecheta's Second Class Citizen via BuzzFeed

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun turned ten this year and Adichie reflected on this - and more - at the Southbank centre in London. On to Puku's Children Literature Foundation and making books available for children in their first language and decolonisation, as well as this piece on decolonisation, not diversification, Chris Abani on a more diverse representation of the continent and the many controversies of the Nigerian Writers series, including its level of commitment when it comes to producing and promoting the 10 books in the series. Then this interview with Chinelo Okparanta on telling her own stories and writing Nigerian LGBT characters:

... I knew ahead of time that many of my fellow Africans would not exactly be thrilled with my subject matter. I was indeed sent some threatening messages via social media, I did not return home for quite a while after my collection was published due to feeling unsafe. Because, of course, anything could happen.  

On Science Fiction's ancient roots in Africa to Somalia's nascent love affair with books and what happened when Ben Okri and Jeremy Corbyn met in London to discuss art, creativity and their dreams of a better world.

On lists, the mother of all lists - a little over 200 books collated by the Media Diversified Library from author Nikesh Shukula's 200+ books by writers of colour on Twitter. This one showcasing 9 publishing companies 'devoted to uplifting marginalised voices and providing quality literature that reflects the diversity of our world'. There's also 10 African countries you can visit through books including Ghana through Murder at Cape Three Points and Equitorial Guinea via By Night the Mountain Burns and this beautiful list of African SFF short stories on Omenana. 

Also listened to this interview on warscapes with Panashe Chigumadzi on American rap music, Afro-pessimism and literature. There's also Caine Prize winner Lidudumalingani on his win and his documentary about the hip-hop movement in Khayelitsha and this interview on Okayafrica - also with Lidudumalingani, in which he speaks on a number of things, including Binyavanga Wainaina's stance that the Caine Prize is 'not our prize':

The reality of it is that no prize would ever be out prize because it will be run by a few individuals with their own prejudices and agendas. This idea that in the world there is or that someday there will be a prize that represents everyone's interests is a myth. What I would agree is that we need more literature prizes. But none of them, I do not think, will be fully encompassing. It is structurally impossible but the contributions, even with their own limitations, contribute towards the bigger goal. 

Speaking of Caine Prize, Tinder Press acquired a story collection and debut novel of shortlisted author - Lesley Nneka Arimah. Finally this beautiful story from Yovanka Paquete Perdigao on her own journey from Guinea-Bissau to London via Dakar and Lisbon. 

Beyond African literature: on breaking up with Orange is the New Black, on Marvel expanding the Black Panther universe, on Roxane Gay becoming one of Marvel's first Black woman writer, but at the same time how Marvel is misunderstanding diversity. On writing speculative fiction while Black, as well as submitting SFF while Black and the surprising intersection between Islam and SF. There's also this on black women who were the secret to NASA's success in WWII and on this analysis of black bodies and storytelling. Finally, if you loved Stranger Things, 6 comics to read after binge-watching it. 

That's it for Read it! Loved it! and also listened to it. Hopefully it won't take a couple of months for the next round up.

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After a snapshot of Nairobi cultural life, the piece will take the form of interviews with writers, arranged in alphabetical order by first name. This will help give them voice, leave the reader free to also make connections, and also back up some of the conclusions I make for myself. Where appropriate the sections each begin with an extensive quotation from the writer's work.  

Occasional mini articles "About..." will help set context. 

The series will continue based on different locations. 

Image via @projectjennifer

Alongside the challenge of langugae stood the marginalisation of female African writers, and the alleged predominance of the West in determining who is celebrated or not as a great African writer. Add to that the preoccupation with how Africa is portrayed by African and non-African writers and you have a cocktail for a conversation about African literature; whether in fiction or non-fiction, these faultlines have been some of the most rigorously debated questions amongst Africa's literati and indeed beyond; but increasingly, "African Literature", always an elusive beast to pin down, is becoming a moveable feast that defies the easy conversations of yesteryear.

Image via The Millions

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Dutch author Mylo Freeman wrote this beautiful piece on what inspired her to create a Black princess, and how the battle for diversity in children's books is far from over. Still, Freeman writes that she is:

 ... happy to find that Princess Arabella transcends race. Proud Surinamese moms send me pictures of their beautiful dark-skinned four-year-olds dressed up as princess Arabella. And when I visited a predominantly white school a few weeks ago, a little blond girl stood up and said: 'Sorry, but I don't think Arabella is a real princess!' I gasped and thought ... here it comes. 'Her dress is orange and not pink', she said. A real princess wears pink!'

Source: Leila Aboulela Official

I did a lot of research for this novel. I like to say that my research was wide but shallow: I read a little bit of a lot of book. And a book that really helped me was The Door of No Return by William St. Clair. He took a bunch of archival research about the Cape Coast Castle, so it's a book that really just talks about what life might have been like in the castle in and around the 18th century. And it really helped me wrap my head around what it might have been like for my characters. And then the rest I think is just a wild and vivid imagination. 

I was compelled to create a new work by adapting the literature from contemporary African writers. The themes of race, liberalism and sexuality in Adichie's short story 'On Monday Last Week' resonated with films on the 'triple consciousness' of the African immigrant as I transitions between avant-garde cinema, fine art and African tradition to complicate the nature of identity.

On Guardian African Network - writer H J Golakai whose debut novel The Lazarus Effect, first published in South Africa by Jacana and now recently published in the UK by Cassava Republic Press - explains how through her writing, she 'is committed to changing international perceptions of writers from her home country.' Speaking of international editions of African books, Emmanuel Iduma's Farad, first published by the Nigerian publishers Parresia, gets a North American makeover with The Sound of Things to Come. Published by The Mantle - it is out sometime this summer, and has an awesome and freaky cover by Victor Ehikhamenor. 

Literary wars continued, but this time a light-hearted one - #ReplaceABookTitleWithJollof. This fun hashtag - 'a literary twist on the Jollof wars' was covered by okayafrica; and important to say that it started in Kenya with #replacebooktitlewith kegels by @notmutant and @mwazo_mengi, was adapted by @nnanaestherne to #replaceabooktitlewithjollof - and the best titles retweeted by Brittle Paper. 

The books of the Africa Writes 2016 guest - although 'Jollof went West' could be another option for Nikhil Singh's book. Image via Africa Writes