Fiction

Khosa J.K. Chambalo | Memory Lane

The red earth of Malawi does not forget the footprints of its children. Even when the rain washes the surface clean,...
Poetry

Abigail George | Black Vulnerability, Black Stigma

Black vulnerability, black stigma There's a swamp in his breath, swampy breathvolcanic ash in his pink nostrils, dragonThe red light from the...
Poetry

Mark de Klerk | Playing Golf with Nelson Mandela

Playing Golf with Nelson Mandela Once again, I am in the roughfeeling inferior to the guy behind mewho keeps hitting holes-in-one.After a...
Essays & Reviews

‘Shèun Ominira-Bluejack | “Uneasy Lies The Head”

“I am an African! I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers,...
Fiction

Yagazie Chinekotam | The Old High Gate Hotel

The set of apartments sat like the last twelve cubes in a St. Louis sugar box. I could smell the aroma of...
Fiction

Michael Barrington | A Toast to Africa

The message from the Regional Director was sparse and uncompromising—no explanations, only urgency. He should leave at once. His destination lay...
Poetry

Cliff Burns | First Meeting

First Meeting You are the Otherbut from your pointof view so am I Inside Schrodinger’s Boxstaring at each otheruncertain what happens next Tribal peoplemeeting...
Poetry

Newpanther | Chapter 9

Chapter 9 yesterdays agoI saw long haired hippies in black and whitereligious groupies squatting everywheretelling fortunes under Shaman trancedrop a bit of...

LAST MONTH...

Abigail George | Old Brown Sherry lullaby

Abigail George -

James Joy | How I Met My Kitten’s Father, and Other Lessons in Love

James Joy -

Tarius Montayj Jones | Pain

Tarius Montayj Jones -

B. Guserwa | A silent affection

My old man loves his wife, but you would never know it. You wouldn’t know it from the way he never says her name, from...

Oluwatobi Adeboyeku | The Mathematics of Passing

It is the season of first rain. Campus air—damp lecture theatres. Muddy walkways swallow up sandals. My coursemate Tola’s patience is wearing thin, like...

Nadia Ahidjo | Na Wetin Dat?

Kadi was slicing avocados for dinner when the first thing hit the roof. It was too loud to be a fruit or a branch....

Brian Obiri-Asare | in pure moonlight

in pure moonlight +++over at the chop bar, where they’re still palavering & holding onto the promise of this world, her sighs return +++from the abyss...

Scott Frost | The First Thing They Take

The First Thing They Take I. before you learn your kradinis the first thing they take.not gently--nothing sort of exciting--but like a tax, they takeeven though...

Samuel Kozah | Facing West

West is the first fact of me. I have faced it for eighty years. My world is curved. The earth presses against my round edge...

RANDOM CONVERSATIONS

The Mystique of Maxim

(for Uzor Maxim Uzoatu, Boroja I, Obi of Ikate,...

H.R. ole Kulet: Education Should Strengthen the Bonds Created by Culture

Henry ole Kulet grew up in a village called...

Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún: Renaissance is Badly Needed in African Language Literature

36-year-old Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún is a poet, blogger, linguist and...

Ogaga Ifowodo: Slipping a Stone in the Sling of Prose and Poetry

The name Ogaga Ifowodo, PhD., is familiar to many,...

Nnedi Okorafor: I just have stories to tell…

Nnedi Okorafor is an important writer, period. She is...

Nengi Ilagha: Words are the instruments of our warfare in the spirit, as in the flesh

NENGI JOSEF OWEI-ILAGHA, fondly called Pope Pen the First,...

A Hero of his own Myth | Lawrence Winkler in Conversation

"What is your final destination…?" asked the South African...

“The artist is a person at a crossroads” – Francis B. Nyamnjoh

Cameroonian Scholar Francis B. Nyamnjoh on Art, Academia, indebtedness,...

Toni Kan Onwordi: Writing is profitable if you know how

Toni Kan Onwordi, better known simply as Toni Kan,...