I have absolutely no problem with the term, “African writer,” I am an African writer. Everything depends on context. And it is true that we are the sum of our experience and folks are right to protest any definition that in their view limits the range of their identity and their life’s work. But I do think Gappah protests too much...

This book is several conversations burning at once. The writer Yvonne A. Owuor starts the conversations rolling in a piece she admits is a rant. It is a rant pregnant with profound gems. She questions why the West glorifies its own wars with stories of valor and views Africa’s wars as savage and barbaric, pointing out that there have been equally gory examples to draw from in the West...

Every character in this book is driven by a deep hunger. Perhaps the monotony of yearning is the story of a Nigeria gradually turning soulless from material lust. In the process, we have learnt to hate ourselves. Energy seems reserved for mimicking the otherness that resides in the West. Unigwe’s book showcases Nigeria as a nation of people deeply invested in acquiring the trappings of an otherness that emanates from the West...

The writer takes on the ambitious job of capturing the devastation of the Delta in prose and sometimes in poetry. It is truly an ambitious project that falls flat on its face and then crumbles from its own weight because it is built on a rickety anemic foundation. The book is a nightmare in terms of design and structure and there is ample evidence that no editor ever read this book...

There is this thing called the Caine Prize for African Literature, whatever that means. People compete for it and someone invariably wins. There is a lot of noise making and jollification for a deserved win and the poor winner is expected to write a book. The poor fellow always obliges and dutifully produces a thoroughly wretched book...

Zimbabwe’s writers have lately being taking me by the literary hand and lovingly showing me wondrous places in the heart of their country - using beautiful prose. I cannot get enough of their works, starting with the late great and greatly troubled Dambudzo Marechera, then Brian Chikwava and now Petina Gappah. Ah! I have just finished reading Petina Gappah’s An Elegy for Easterly published by Faber and Faber, Inc. and now I am in love with Zimbabwe...

Maybe I am suffering from Adichie overdose, but Adichie is becoming fairly predictable to me. I can now recognize her stories even in the dark. The thing wrapped tightly within Adichie starts slowly at the beginning of each story and rises with quiet, oh so quiet indignation and gently retches all over everyone...

Ngugi is a gifted writer and a noble son of Africa. But Ngugi has always been given to quixotic journeys; I say quixotic because I am not quite sure his experiments in this book were productive, especially to the extent that he has not been able to foster a substantive dialogue on what and how we should communicate our literature as Africans...

I ask you to run, don’t walk, just run to the nearest wherever-people-buy-books-these-days and grab you a copy of Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s peppy book I Do Not Come to You By Chance.  I have racked my brains, thought about it, and come to the possibly audacious conclusion that this writer may have just written one of the most comprehensive documentation in prose-song of the ravages of the locust of materialism on our people’s way of life...

There are many things to like about this little book that purrs gently, ever so gently. The book exudes the quiet confidence of a writer properly centered in the beauty and challenges of his being...

Have you ever read a book that you could never put down because you feel this weird obligation to finish it? To relive that experience, buy Biyi Bandele’s book Burma Boy...

Sister Atta, you speak to me in your book. You speak to me from deep in the bowels of my ancestors’ coven. You speak to me howling, bawling, and soaking me in the song of our mothers’ grief...

In Yellow-Yellow, we see a Nigeria rotting in place as its people desperate for affirmation and survival engage in an elaborate okoso system of getting whatever they need  in return for whatever they can give...

If Dibia’s book does not spark debate in Africa, it is probably because that continent has a crushing burden of challenges that make the issue of homosexuality look trivial...

In The Horsemen and other poems, Nwakanma gallops through many seasons of war, ploughs through many cemeteries of fallen dreams, scales okra covered walls and chases dreams that never left our huts in the first place. And the reader comes upon this land of alien deities, and lands exhausted on the unwelcome mats of these strange people that worship feuding gods...

I must say, after reading The Virgin of Flames that I heartily recommend it to all lovers of good literature. This book is a delightful riot of sizzling prose, robust poetry and keep-me-up-at-night issues...