In two scintillating poems, Echezonachukwu Nduka takes us on a voyage in the River Niger while immersing us in the waters of its glory and beauty, and in Boardwalk he invites us to observe with him the lives of ordinary people at an unknown boardwalk.
The Village Square Journal brings to you the winning story of the 2019 Paula Chinwe Okafor Prize for Creative Non-fiction – a literary prize administered annually by The Crater Library Festival. The 2019 Prize was won by Temitayo Olofinlua. “You may have learned from your mother or any other hunted woman. Smiling at devils is a useful learned thing. Swallowing discomfort down in spades. Holding it tight in your belly. Ageing on the inside only. Keeping it forever sexy.”…
Lately, numerous festivals have been held across the African continent. With this increase in the number of literary festivals, authors, readers, and other members of the literary community are more curious about and interested in such gatherings. Are you planning or considering attending a literary festival in Africa? One of our editors, Amara Chimeka, attended the recently-concluded PaGya Literary Festival in Accra, hosted by the Writers’ Project of Ghana, and sampled opinions from your favourite African literati. They all aver…
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,…
A book festival in Makurdi? In these days of Boko Haram and insecurity? Jeez! You’ve got guts. This is our first reaction, though it is almost immediately replaced by awe, when we see the Instagram post announcing the inaugural Benue Book and Arts Festival. However, like the toad that does not run in the daytime for nothing, we dare the odds and end up having a refreshing time, learning and unlearning from and with other literature and culture…
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…
In this poem, Ahmad Holderness pens an ode to the Sudanese ancient city of Khartoum Who are you now City where love reared herself a throne molded From dust Blue and white skirts flow to the nape of your waist, inviting Snake on a desert; I’m a pattern in your dust Mud house, melting like a pillar of salt, with stars Gazing from behind heaven’s tears, I become stardust A boy begged for…
Iskandar Haggarty’s exclusively stylistic poem sheds light into the known and the unknown, questioning their effect on human feelings and nature. perhaps it’s Salah El Din and perhaps not. perhaps the king Ptolemy and the scholar Ptolemy were brothers. perhaps the mother of the night sky sheds her silken dress like comets falling as letters, inscribing lovelorn dunes. perhaps the astronomer asks questions he’s not supposed to ask. perhaps the astronomer falls…
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…
The world is happy to celebrate powerful women – as long as they are fictional. From the Greeks’ mythical Amazons and the Valkyries of Icelandic sagas, to Wonder Woman striding heroically across our cinema screens, powerful women are the stuff of fantasy, the exception. But women have always been brave, smart, resourceful, strong – it’s the narratives that changed – and new findings are revealing women’s power as fact. The recent discovery by modern genome research, that…