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Africa’s writer NgugiwaThiong’o.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o as town crier of Africa

The Kenyan writer challenged Western influence on African culture and history, highlighting heritage and resilience

The interpretation: Director Kola Tubosun has made a documentary about Wole Soyinka (above). Photo Keystone-France/Getty Images

Wole Soyinka: The artist captured in a moment long gone

Kola Tubosun has made a documentary about Nigerian creative Wole Soyinka who has just turned 90

Tableau: Dr Ainehi Edoro, professor of African literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the founder and publisher of literary platform Brittle Paper, hopes the list of 50 Notable African Books will inspire readers to read more books from writers on the continent. (Photo: Nicole Bitonti)

The Portfolio: Celebrating a great year in African writing

Brittle Paper’s 50 Notable African Books is the product of extensive year-round reportage

50 Notable African Books of 2021: Selected by Brittle Paper

The online publication’s annual list celebrates not only the sheer abundance of African literature but its daring, new directions

Abdulrazak Gurnah distils the precarious experience of the exile, the refugee and the asylum seeker into his novels. (Simone Padovani/Awakening/Getty Images)

Abdulrazak Gurnah: Nobel prize honours a self-effacing and unassuming talent

Not many knew of the unheralded Zanzibari author who has steadily produced 10 novels

Jonathan Jansen was prompted to carry out this study by the dearth of research about senior university management in South Africa

Burning varsities: Responding to fire

As by Fire’s hard look at the recent violence on campuses presents dire warnings and hope

Harry Garuba took almost a lifetime to publish another collection of poems.

‘For 30 years, I kept running’

Harry Garuba wrote his first collection of poems in 1982. It’s taken him 35 years to do a second

Peter Dutton has been described as solid

Another Nigerian star emerges

Ayòbámi Adébáyò summons Yoruba folklore and a longstanding literary tradition in her debut novel

Wole Soyinka believes that

Soyinka razor-sharp and defiant at 80

Nobel prizewinner hits out at ‘Boko Haramism’ of Nigerian culture and the banalisation of graft.

Social justice calls for new thinking

A new kind of intellectual needs to join the ranks of those fighting for economic emancipation, writes Louise Ferreira.

The art of creating a trail of images

Artists attempt to understand their work by unlocking the secrets behind their creative impulses.

Fela Kuti’s cousin carries on a lonely struggle in Nigeria

After years of furthering her family’s tradition of activism, Yemisi Ransome-Kuti decided to take her struggle to the campaign trail.

Myth of the man peeled away

Wole Soyinka, the wisecracking writer with the grizzled hair, has lived a full, eventful life, as documented in a film about his life.

A perfect, riceless Xmas

Okey Ndibe describes how two grand old men of modern African literature saved his career — and his Christmas.

Celebrating literary lions

Wole Soyinka is the latest African playwright to be celebrated by local director James Ngcobo, writes Percy Zvomuya.