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A Game for Heroes...If You Believe the Hype

If you look closely at the hype surrounding soccer and soccer greats, you will notice that the clubs that own the players and the organisations that control the tournaments are the cheerleaders in this mania. In other words, the game is being gobbled up by the monster that is commercialisation...

Leela’s screams brought Devi to the house and together they called the police. There were no signs of a break-in but Mrs. Manish’s insured jewellery collection – brought out of the safe in readiness for the wedding – was missing. The only person in the house at the time of the incident was Leela’s father, Mr. Manish – an ancient, infirm loner – and he heard nothing, being almost completely deaf...

For the Love of Flight is Lola Shoneyin’s third collection of poems and it goes a long way in cementing what is, already, a well deserved reputation as an important literary voice and poet who also happens to write fiction and children’s stories. She also remains the most prolific female Nigerian poet working now or at any other time in the history of Nigerian literature...

Camellia - Poetry by Lucius Ndimele

At the death of rain, grew
Camellia amongst our moulds
Clinging to her nectar
Like the dews to the
Bosom of awakening leaves...

Infatuation - Poems by Frank E. Achebe

The man-prisoner has become a victim of 
Mental flagellations and lunar obfuscations
A taking of night dreams
Grace, gone and stolen by this passer-by...

Behind The Dust - A Story by Jude Ifeme

 It’s been one year since the chaos and bloodbath in 12th Mile, but the relics of the violence and destruction still littered the streets; burnt-out cars down the alleys, a few houses razed to the ground in attempts to smoke-out their occupants, skeletons of motorbikes posing here and there – the human remains were buried in a hurry, their eternal homes unmarked...

The ghosts are abroad in Fukushima
Seeking answers, they will not know rest
Like the rest who though alive will never be whole
Their world arrested at lunch time
When the earth spewed fire and the sea belched havoc...

I don’t think prizes define the strength of Nigerian literature. And not winning any of the prizes on offer at last year’s Caine Prize and Commonwealth competitions does not diminish the richness of Nigerian writing. The important thing to note is that there is a strong tide of young Nigerian writers embracing writing, becoming much more keen and expressive... - Uche Peter Umez

Pain at midnight - Poems by Abigail George

Speak to me in a dream, speak to me as a mother, speak to me as an
Oracle in a rum voice, anchor me prince of tides, she says to her lover
In rumours of rain, gather chains and link them to my heart so that
This belly ache will subside and flow like jelly to the skull...

The song of the fields is a silly wild cacophony
The quiet of noon home a sombre frozen void
The radio is a distressing mad discordance
The screen a flurry of undefined absurd forms
The book shelves no more have the power to arrest
The writing gadgets no more the magic to release...

Naked Light and the Blind Eye’s importance lies in avoiding conventional moralising that might have arisen from the chosen subject matter. It stresses the sanctity of the individual viewpoint as opposed to the public one. It also avoids any form of political sermonising...

Perhaps the first thing that strikes one about this novel is its desire to be a poetic rendition. The signs of this desire are palpable and pervasive throughout the story. The author obviously has intended to situate the narrative between the junction at which poetry and story meets; more tellingly, the junction at which poetry exerts its poetic power over narration...

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