The Latest Breaking News from Chinua Achebe

The epic novel runs amok in Omar Musa’s Fierceland

Omar Musa’s new book, Fierceland, ranges across five distinct geographies and covers a period of some 170 years. It is told from at least ten perspectives and encompasses prose, poetry and visual art. It is, in every way, an epic endeavour.

The Conversation · Jan 11

God in Nigeria: the country’s novelists help us understand the complexity of Christianity

In African literature, Christianity has usually been shown as a foreign religion brought to the continent by European missionaries and colonisers. But in the past few decades, Nigeria’s writers have dealt with it in a far more complex way as Christianity is rooted in, and transformed by, local realities, ranging…

The Conversation · Dec 4, 2025

‘We must unite’: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s rallying cry at Nigerian literature festival

Author’s keynote speech calls for preservation of Igbo worldview, culture and traditions amid separatist movement turning increasingly violent

The Guardian - UK · Jul 9, 2025

‘For too long literature has been defined by one set of people’: writing back to the empire and beyond

Black novelists, poets and playwrights have a long history of reclaiming narratives, the theme of this year’s Black History Month. Novelist Ben Okri looks at where this tradition has come from – and where it’s going next

The Guardian - UK · Oct 23, 2024

ME: we need more funding and more research

Letters: people with myalgic encephalomyelitis and their carers are calling for a reversal of decades of underfunding

The Guardian - UK · Aug 4, 2024

Days of The Jackal: how Andrew Wylie turned serious literature into big business

The long read: Andrew Wylie is agent to an extraordinary number of the planet’s biggest authors. His knack for making highbrow writers very rich helped to define a literary era – but is his reign now coming to an end?

The Guardian - UK · Nov 9, 2023

20 years after the publication of 'Purple Hibiscus,' a generation of African writers have followed in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's footsteps

Twenty years ago, in October 2003, 26-year-old Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie burst onto the North American publishing scene with her debut novel,“ Purple Hibiscus.”

The Conversation · Oct 6, 2023

40 best books to read before you die, from Great Expectations to Wolf Hall

Losing yourself in a great novel is one of life’s joys. Here our critics Ceri Radford and Chris Harvey pick the books you need to read

The Independent UK · Sep 14, 2023

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: three days with a giant of African literature

The long read: The Kenyan novelist’s life and work has intersected with many of the biggest events of the past century. At 85, he reflects on his long, uncompromising life in writing

The Guardian - UK · Jun 13, 2023

Ama Ata Aidoo obituary

One of Africa’s most influential playwrights and poets who served as education minister in her native Ghana

The Guardian - UK · Jun 11, 2023