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Category: ESSAYS

The Older Generation of African Literary Scholars and their Obnoxious Idea of African Literary Tradition
June 28, 2018
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    In this essay, our Founding Editor, Obinna Udenwe critically analyzes his understanding of the term, African literary tradition, and takes on the older generation of African literary scholars who denigrate contemporary authors and their works   What is African literary tradition? This question was posed to a panel of distinguished academics at a 2018 joint conference organised by the Association of Nigerian Authors in conjunction with the Alex Ekwueme-Federal University Ndufu Alike Ikwo in Ebonyi State on…

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Positive Deviance and Appreciative Inquiry: The story of slowly transforming Sadai
June 22, 2018
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    With development interventions’ increasing focus on utilizing a given community’s strengths in order to lead to desired outcomes, the field narrative detailed in this piece by the researcher Malvya Chintakindi sheds light on Sehgal Foundation’s (SF) work in Sadai village which serves as a case of successful utilization of positive deviance and appreciate inquiry.   Positive deviance is an approach to behavioral and social change based on the observation that in any community, there are people whose…

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The Use of Voice in Storytelling Part III
June 7, 2018
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  In collaboration with Trish Nicholson, the New Zealander author of A Biography of Story, A Brief History of Humanity, we are publishing a three-part coaching series on “the use of voice in storytelling” – which is intended to help writers of fiction navigate and master how voice and dialogue are used to capture the attention of readers. As a prelude to this coaching series we had published a flash story, Runnin’ the River referenced in this series. We…

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The Use of Voice in Storytelling Part II
May 25, 2018
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| ESSAYS

  In collaboration with Trish Nicholson, the New Zealander author of A Biography of Story, A Brief History of Humanity, we are publishing a three-part coaching series on “the use of voice in storytelling” – which is intended to help writers of fiction navigate and master how voice and dialogue are used to capture the attention of readers. As a prelude to this coaching series we had published a flash story, Runnin’ the River referenced in this series. We…

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The Use of Voice in Storytelling
May 17, 2018
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| ESSAYS

    In collaboration with Trish Nicholson, the New Zealander author of A Biography of Story, A Brief History of Humanity, we are publishing a three-part coaching series on “the use of voice in storytelling” – which is intended to help writers of fiction navigate and master how voice and dialogue is used to capture the attention of their readers. As a prelude to this coaching series we had published a flash story, Runnin’ the River referenced in this…

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Call for Essays on Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart @ 60
March 7, 2018
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| ESSAYS, Uncategorized

      It is sixty years since 1958, when Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was first published. The Village Square Journal will be joining the rest of the world to mark the novel’s anniversary. We are seeking to publish six outstanding and brilliantly articulated essays, one every week for six weeks, starting in May 2018, that border on or/and address the following issues as well as related themes, as we countdown to the actual date of publication. The…

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Garvey and Me: An Account of Marcus Garvey’s ‘Messianic’ Mission to Awaken Black Consciousness By Stephen Thompson
February 27, 2018
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                  “…until you’ve been beaten up and called every racist name under the sun by the very people who are supposedly there to protect you, until you’ve experienced firsthand what it’s like to live in a community where there are police cars and vans on practically every street corner and where young black males are several times more likely to be arrested and imprisoned than their white counterparts, then it’s hard…

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The Separation Wall by Helon Habila
February 14, 2018
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    1.THE WALL In history and in literature, walls have always appealed to the popular imagination. In his short story “The Great Wall of China,” Kafka shows this abiding popularity of walls using the example of the building of the wall in China. The wall was ostensibly built as protection against “raiders from the north.” It took many generations over many dynasties to build, and it involved the entire Chinese nation, making the people who actually engaged in…

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The Rise of Brittle Paper: The Village Square of African Literature By Obinna Udenwe
February 13, 2018
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When I was a child, up to my teenage years, growing up close to the state university, we used to gather at a junction connecting all the streets in our neighbourhood to play all sorts of games – it was there that we made our bones, learnt how to build cars using old tyres and Coca-cola corks and how to run after older, posh university girls to sing funny songs for them. We thought we were in heaven until…

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