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Mami Watas, president’s wives, and a stew – The 2020 Caine Prize Stories
The AKO Caine Prize for African Writing is awarded each year to one short story by an African/ African-diasporic writer. You can read all the stories online via the Caine Prize website. The winner will be announced on July 27th with a film by Joseph Adesunloye. Of course, the question had to come up at yesterday’s 2020 AKO Caine Prize Conversation organized by Africa Writes and chaired by Ifeanyi Awachi: What about the dominance of Nigerian writers? Rémy Ngamjie and Erica Sugo Anyadike – the two non-Nigerian writers shortlisted, though Ngajie in a humorous act just claimed Nigerian-ess and Anyadike revealed to much laughter that she is married to a Nigerian – shifted their gaze away from Nigeria.…
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A Month of Reading Exclusively Queer Literature – 50 Years After Stonewall
On the night from the 27th of June to 28th of June 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn at Christopher Street in New York City. The raid sparked resistance and a revolt against police violence over the following days. The exact sequence of events from these days and especially of the early morning hours at the 28th is difficult to retrace today. Even though, it is important to note that the riot involved prominently BPoC trans women and drag queens, sex workers, butch drag kings etc. Morgan M Page, writer and host of the trans history podcast One From the Vaults, writes in her article “It Doesn’t Matter Who Threw the…
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Moving Through the World (Happy?) Fat
Last year in July, I almost fainted when I saw Danish UK-based comedian Sofie Hagen perform in Berlin. Now my near collapsing wasn’t so much swooning – though Sofie Hagen might merit that – but due to being stuck in a very small, very hot, and pretty much void of oxygen venue. But still, in the end, I was very glad I had persevered because Hagen’s show made me laugh full heartedly, giggle, and tear up. In a short amount of time, Hagen managed to tell a story of growing up in Denmark, the relationship to her body, and the experience of sexualized violence. Before that performance, I had watched…
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5 Reasons Why I Loved Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift
In 2009, Namwali Serpell’s short story “Muzungu” published in Callaloo was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2009 and a year later it was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing (a prize she would go on winning five years later). Now, this story – reworked – sits in the middle of Serpell’s spellbinding, epic 560-pages long debut novel The Old Drift. After having finished it, I felt like I had just read five different books. It is so rich, brimming with ideas, fantastical in it turns. While I am still gathering all my thoughts (for a more thorough review published elsewhere) and already planning a re-read, I want to share…
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“All the ghosts of life/ assemble before us”
This March started with a bang for poetry. On the first day of the month, University Press of Nebraska published Tjawangwa Dema’s debut collection The Careless Seamstress and Mahtem Shiferraw’s sophomore collection Your Body is War as part of the African Poetry Book Series. Both poets are deeply invested in interrogating the ways women experience this world and crafting a specific language and imagery to capture these experiences. Tjawangwa Dema’s chapbook Mandible had been included in the box set Seven New Generation African Poets five years ago – other poets of that group like Warsan Shire, Nick Makoha, and Ladan Osman have also gone on to publish celebrated works since. Now it is Dema’s turn…
