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Take a seat, you are now in the village square. Enjoy!
Obinna Udenwe shortlisted for the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature

The Co-founder of The Village Square Journal, Obinna Udenwe has been shortlisted for the NLNG sponsored Nigeria Prize for Literature alongside 10 others. The first shortlist which was announced on Sunday, July 4th 2021 by the Advisory Board of the Prize has eleven books in contention. Obinna Udenwe is shortlisted for his latest book, Colours of Hatred – a novel about the Egbufor family and their journey traversing through the turbulent sea of life. The book tells of this…

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Nigerians Deserve Themselves – Onyeka Nwelue

As part of the general idea to bridge the gap created by the global pandemic, Covid19, the British Council Literature came up with the ‘British Council International Digital Collaboration Project’ to connect artists across countries.  Our project titled #Wahalaconvo run by the Nigerian writer, Obinna Udenwe, and the British–Nigerian author, Peter Kalu, working with other artists in both Nigerian and the UK, has looked at the Covid19 pandemic, #EndSARS and #BlackLivesMatter, and how they have shaped our lives not…

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Snow by Dermot O’ Sullivan

Vultures skulked overhead. Their sharp skulls bludgeoned back into their hunched shoulders, black eyes flickering greedily over the poolside terrace, watching Francisco’s daughter as she stumbled from bust-in deckchair to mould-ridden bench and back, carrying with her – with intense concentration – the plastic spoons and forks and mugs that Francisco had taken from the kitchen earlier that day for the visit, not wishing to risk that someone may be using them by the time little Luciana would arrive….

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Colours of Hatred – Excerpt

The Village Square Journal presents an excerpt from Obinna Udenwe’s second book, “Colours of Hatred”. Colours of Hatred, published by Parresia Books, is set partly in Sudan and largely in Nigeria, and follows the life of a young woman, Leona whose family escapes assassination in Sudan during the Sudanese civil war, only to face greater challenges in Nigeria, which forces her to commit a sin that haunts her till her dying day. There are some things a human ear…

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Rotshang by Bizuum Yadok

A lie begets a lie, and even half-truths do not endure the test of time. Nonetheless, some lies are so cosy that you would never want to spare a quarter of an ear to entertain alternative versions of them. If love marries a lie, their union would produce anything but peace. But I had peace. I raised my head to take a swift break from the game I was playing on my Nokia 3310. According to Dr Jot’s jokes,…

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We Are Not Alone by Nick Armitage

  I am in the bedroom and in the bedroom, on the top of our chest of drawers is a porcelain hand, the fingers of which point up to the sky, poised, waiting, open in a gracefully twisted acceptance of her rings and on the porcelain pinkie her wedding ring idles as it has done for weeks now. I can hear the radio playing in the kitchen and I can hear her moving about and I can hear the…

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Runnin’ the River by Trish Nicholson

  In collaboration with Trish Nicholson, the New Zealander author of A Biography of Story, A Brief History of Humanity, we will be 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, we have decided to publish this flash story, Runnin’ the River which is mentioned…

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The Crossroads at Jijiga by James Woolf

  Yonas is cross and munching saltbush. He swivels his head towards the rusting armaments left many moons ago by the Somalis and then back towards Habesha and Bworo. “Come on, you crabby old banda!” Bworo says. “We have work.” Yonas raises his head to the sky and emits a groan of extreme reticence, the guttural groan of the despairing slave in captivity. Habesha giggles and Bworo shakes his head. They are accustomed to the protests of their only…

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