A truly multilingual volume of poetry that captures the times, legends and spaces of the city in the mellifluous tone of a court raconteur; Ilorin is the rational hybrid of cultures, its praise-song steeped in the invocation and evocation of indigenous,oriental and western traditions. Written in English, Yoruba and Hausa, the poems are carefully stringed in short spurts of epical quality.
In the early sixties, Tayo Ajayi sails to England from Nigeria to take up a scholarship at Oxford University. There he discovers a whole generation high on visions of a new and better world. He meets Vanessa Richardson, the beautiful daughter of a former colonial officer.
Their story, which spans four decades, is a bittersweet tale of a brave but doomed affair and the universal desire to fall truly, madly and deeply in love. A lyrical and moving story of unfulfilled love fraught with the weight of history, race and geography and intertwined with questions of belonging, aging, faith and family secrets. In Dependence explores the complexities of contemporary Africa, its Diaspora and its interdependence with the rest of the world.
Three Black women are linked in unexpected ways to the same influential white man in Stockholm as they build their new lives in the most open society run by the most private people.
Successful marketing executive Kemi Adeyemi is lured from the U.S. to Sweden by Jonny von Lundin, CEO of the nation’s largest marketing firm, to help fix a PR fiasco involving a racially tone-deaf campaign. A killer at work but a failure in love, Kemi’s move is a last-ditch effort to reclaim her social life.
A chance meeting with Jonny in business class en route to the U.S. propels former model-turned-flight-attendant Brittany-Rae Johnson into a life of wealth, luxury, and privilege—a life she’s not sure she wants—as the object of his unhealthy obsession.
And refugee Muna Saheed, who lost her entire family, finds a job cleaning the toilets at Jonny’s office as she works to establish her residency in Sweden and, more importantly, seeks connection and a place she can call home.
Told through the perspectives of each of the three women, In Every Mirror She’s Black is a fast-paced, richly nuanced yet accessible contemporary novel that touches on important social issues of racism, classism, fetishization, and tokenism, and what it means to be a Black woman navigating a white-dominated society.
In the Corridors is a book about one of the most remarkable, yet largely unknown influencers in Nigeria’s often complicated political and business circles. Chief Obafemi Olopade, an outstanding businessman and long-time close friend to Nigeria’s former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has for many decades had the rare privilege of seeing critical events unfold behind the scenes within the corridors of powerin Nigeria. In this autobiography, he shares some of his observations and experiences within those corridors, offering the reader insights into occurrences in Nigerian politics that are usually shrouded in mystery.
Sex and friendship, ambition and political intrigue, secrets and betrayal will set the fate of two slaves— Jamīla and Abimelech—in this ground-breaking debut novel.
Inspired by the only existing first-person narrative of an Abyssinian slave in Iran, Jamīla Habashī, In the Palace of Flowers recreates the opulent Persian royal court of the Qajars at the end of the nineteenth century. This is a precarious time of growing public dissent, foreign interference from the Russians and British, and the problem of an aging ruler and his unsuitable heir.
Torn away from their families, Jamila, a concubine, and Abimelech, a eunuch, now serve at the whims of the royal family, only too aware of their own insignificance in the eyes of their masters. Abimelech and Jamila’s quest to take control over their lives and find meaning leads to them navigating the dangerous politics of the royal court, and to the radicals that lie beyond its walls.
Richly textured and elegantly written, at its heart In The Palace of Flowers is a novel about the fear of being forgotten.
The arrival of a second wife causes a woman to reassess her marriage. Another faces up to tough choices in the wake of a military coup. A heroine from history lights the path for a modern girl on the road to Jenwi. A picture on a wall tells its own poignant story of sacrifice. A former cultist must confront an unspoken secret in his family.
A collection of short stories.
A desperate doctor commits murder to appease his wife. A drug-dealing family comes undone following a police raid. A young foreign-educated graduate, brimming with patriotic zest, returns to Nigeria to help rebuild her country, but quickly becomes disillusioned as the hassle and unpredictability of Lagos overwhelm her. And in jaunty, pointed observations, “Two-Way Streets” collects and reflects on the motifs of typical Lagos living.
The stories in this anthology take on the beautiful, clustered Lagos with aplomb and all-knowing authority, the characters’ lives coming together to weave a rich tapestry of a city that is at once startling in its grime and entertaining in its glory.
The tussle between Power and office is historically notorious, even banal, and the comeuppance for the later, Office, is well deserved if it becomes negligent and irresponsible, thus opening itself to legitimate challenge from any source, even seemly powerless
A follow-up to the earlier volume, Soyinka is just as cutting and acerbic, as he takes on his bêtes noire in ‘The Republic of Liars’; and as usual, he pulls no punches.
“Basic education, sometimes known as Home Upbringing matters, and nurturing remains a dedicated undertaking. Internet accessibility is no substitute. Like the lyrics of that ancient Lagosian song ‘Eko gb’ole o gb’ole’, the Internet accommodates robbers and indolent in equal, non-discriminating measures. The fact however remains that facts do remain facts, and one incontestable fact is that at no time did WS make any pronouncement, public or private, that invited any of these posturing mutants to come and “play with him”, least of all on a bicycle that even he has never considered his, only borrowed for a term, liable to be reclaimed or relinquished by either contracting party.” Taken somewhat aback by the unexpectedly viral response which accompanied his decision to keep his promise to destroy his American Green Card, if Donald Trump was elected president, Soyinka – with the help of a few other contributors to this volume – takes on his trolls – online as well as off.
This compilation contains three lectures delivered by Professor Wole Soyinka on recent developments in the Nigerian polity which call for well-informed critical analysis. And, true to the very nature of the great writer, these essays are nothing short of intelligence, eloquence and profundity.
The Nigerian state is bedevilled by various scourges: the constant thirst for – and abuse of – power by governments and individuals alike, is posing a great threat to freedom more than ever before in the country; Religion is in a perpetual supremacy contest with Nationhood; and ‘Rituals’ – the latest being the Nigerian Centenary Celebration – have come to be very effective in concealing the reality of decay going on around. And where is the average Nigerian in all these? Obscured and the so-called heroes among them? They have been dismissed and shouted into anonymity by the very ones who are supposed to lend them their voices.
“While our own ‘dear native land’ must claim credit from inspiring the sub-series The Republic of Liars within the general series of interventions… There are challengers and even-champions – elsewhere, seeking to wrest the laurel of lies from our own inspirational nation.
Within these pages, I present my chastening paracletes and their industry – from the world of sophisticates of modern intellection.”
Nigeria is a large country inhabited by over 300 ethnic identities, each with their unique ways.
In this revised edition, we showcase the beauty and diversity of Nigeria in carefully curated photographs and elegant prose.
