“The question Ifenna was supposed to ask Pastor Nick at the press parley was about the plans the church had to support the less priviledged, especially those in the communities closest to the complex. The two reporters who asked the questions before him had kept to the script. The first asked what inspired the project, and Pastor Nick seized the opportunity to retell the story of the message he received from God. (…) The second question was about the cost of the project. Ifenna guessed that the lady who’d asked the question was a groupie of the pastor, the way she started off with eulogies ..read more

“My locs are just shy of five years. They flow, like water. They are fluffy and black. They are dark. I forbid anyone to touch them. I use a black scarf to cover them. And how they coil, and how heavy they are, weighing me down with the expectations of my quarter. We are in the fourth year without rain. A sack of maize is gold. Water is divine. Here is a lesson we have learned: there is thirst and then there is thirst. (“Five Years Next Sunday”) In an anonymous country where rain has been absent for five years, a young woman’s long lustruous hair makes people’s heads turn and attracts unimagin ..read more

(to be released in April 2022) « Growing up, I have many fond memories of this beautiful sandy town overlooking a vast river. I remember lots of pounded Dumboy with delicious pepper soup. The dudu to spice up the soup was always spot on. I can still hear my mother’s laughter sat under the Kola tree. Hanging out in Lloydsville is one of her best and happiest moments. Standing in Harper, I felt like I was back home. I began to imagine my forefathers entering Maryland County through this very river, and starting a new life in Africa away from slavery and dissent. » Liberia, 1989. The ci ..read more

“Being in Kampala reminded Keza of how blessed she was. How many people in the world call three countries home? Uganda was her birthplace and her parents were buried there. She had a special spot in her heart for the place. Speaking Luganda came naturally to her. Ever since she stepped in Rwanda for the first time, she fell in love with the land of a thousand hills. As a child, her grandmother used to tell her that the hills of Rwanda flowed with milk and honey and that God spent his day elsewhere and slept in Rwanda. Her soul was at peace there. (…) As a naturalized American, New York City wa ..read more

“The taxi took a bend on a bridge, turning right. I shut my eyes again, overcome by a sense of smallness as the buildings rose in their cold confidence. I shrank before them, before the broad road itself, before everything around me, the vast newness that was beginning to impose itself on my senses. I felt the conflicting contraction and expansion of my mind, the force and impact of the new. I was in the new, consciously aware of it, but the new was already throwing me out of control.” Frank Jasper, a writer from Port Jumbo, Nigeria, is offered a scholarship in the United States to write “the ..read more

“Two thousand comrades. Until she was fourteen she had never heard the word ‘comrade’, but now it was everywhere in her life. She remembered clearly the day when she first heard it. A still, bright, sunny day. Her village was quiet and there was a heat haze over the field. (…) Her mother and Kundiso were at one end of the field, talking, hoeing. Nyanye was at the other end. She stretched and looked up into the sky, shading her eyes with her hand. Two big brown birds flew above her. Eagles. Circling, then going away, coming back, circling, going, coming.” Zimbabwe, guerrila war, late 1970s. Thr ..read more

“In the evening, Ali was amazed to see lights coming on everywhere at the click of small buttons on the walls! The illumination itself was different from that of the oil lamps used in the village. He marvelled for a long time while his uncle simply smiled. He figured out every house in the environment had such lights. With all the lights turned on, he wondered what the world would look like outside their dwelling. He rushed out to catch a glimpse.” Ali is an honest hardworking young man who lives with his pregnant wife in a small Nigerian village. When his uncle Ladi takes him to the city, Ali ..read more

“My recollection of events at SAJOMACO is not perfect. It is also predominantly from a boy’s perspective in a mixed school. From the limited conversations I have had with a few of our female classmates, their experiences appeared to be worse. I accept that not everyone will agree with the accounts as I have laid them out or with my perspectives, but I have tried to give a faithful account of the events as much as possible. I excluded some stories because I chose to focus on one theme : survival against the odds.” Place : West Nigeria, St. John & Mary’s Unity Secondary School (or SAJOMACO ..read more

” During Kobenan’s two years in the presidency, he has stepped into the presidential office only twice, despite his office door facing Mr. Kone’s. (…) There have been many threatening and delicate situations, but Kobenan usually answers directly to Mr. Kone, so he knows before knocking at the presidential door, where he stands towered over by the two agents, that there must be a crucial situation ahead. “ Kobenan works for the secret services of the imagined West African country Côte d’Espérance. His job is envied by many all the more because he is very young and entrusted with the analysis of ..read more

“‘You know, Chrisnelt, if you want to see a real tree of truth, the biggest in the City, I should take you to the one at its heart. At the rising place, where all the streets meet all the boulevards in the very middle, where once, long ago, a small clearing held the huts of a village that made its own rain and sunshine. That Christmas tree has lived there for almost one hundred years now. It stands very quietly, only telling the truth at Christmas-time. I call it Africa’s Tree. My own father told me that the city officials back then, the elders from many places and tribes, had met before his ..read more