Arts & Books

Stories work with people, for people, and always stories work on people, affecting what people are able to see as real, as possible, and as worth doing or best avoided – Arthur Frank

In the 1980s and 90s, a small gathering of aspiring poets, writers and the mandatory charlatans used to meet in a lecture room at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan. At the famed Room 71, they read their poetry in public to mostly discerning audiences.

Individuals on the ‘left’, or those who prefer the characterisation ‘progressives’, ‘radicals’ or ‘activists’ are conscious of the fact that the imperialist leopard never changes its spots. Though it may appear to do so, the change is illusionary.

On this very day of 29 May 2014 that commemorates 48 years of Nigeria’s launch of the Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa, what more appropriate publication to read, and review, than Osita Ebiem’s excellent book, Nigeria, Biafra & Boko Haram: Ending the

Almost everything I’ve read about Maya Angelou since her death lists her various occupations and achievements, with some permutations.

Title: Confessions of a Terrorist
Author: Richard Jackson
Publisher: Zed-books
Date of Publication: May 2014
Reviewer: Atunga Atuti O.J.

‘Here is some prosperity porn: Africa provides a higher rate of return on investment than any other developing region of the world—including celebrated “BRIC” nations of Brazil, India and China,’ so says Dayo Olopade in her new and expansive survey work, The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and

This is probably the worst time to write and release a book about my involvement in the long struggle to free South Africa.

The film “Comrade President” on the life and times of Mozambican leader, Samora Machel, was shown to a very well attended audience in the British Film Institute (BFI) in central London on 26 April 2014. It opened with the profoundly poignant words from Graca Machel, the late widow of Samora: