Rough Diamonds: Chapter One

Torn trousers, worn-out shoes, undersized, dirty T-shirts, uncombed hair and a generally unkempt appearance. These introduce them before they even speak or extend their arms for alms. But Mukhtar Sadiq wants the world to know that he is different. ‘I speak English,’ he said, ‘speak English to me.’ He is 12, in JSS2 and places […]

An image of Northern Nigeria’s marital and gender-based controversies: A survey of Abubakar Gimba’s Sacred Apples

Being a paper presented at the 13th International Conference on Ethnic Nationalities, Cultural Memory and the Challenges of Nationhood in 21st Century Literature, held at The University Auditorium, IBB University, Lapai, from 30th August to 2nd September 2016. Abstract Gender issues in Nigerian literature (and beyond) have for long been the protagonistic thematic-preoccupation prevalent among male and female writers. […]

Against the Run of Play: How an incumbent president was defeated in Nigeria

Author: Olusegun Adeniyi Publisher: Kachifo limited Category: Non-fiction Publication Year: 2017 Pages: 221 Against the Run of Play is a page-turner political exposé. It reveals, in print, detailed happenings in the Nigerian political scene during the regime of former President Goodluck Jonathan. The book exposes in details how political decisions are made in the country, particularly during Goodluck Jonathan regime—giving insights […]

Poverty as a catalyst for psychological disorder: A case study of J.M. Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K.

Abstract This article examines the complementary relationship between poverty and human psychology using as template J.M. Coetzee’s novel, Life and Times of Michael K. It asserts that oppressive governance and societal hostility are harbingers of poverty, and poverty, in turn, causes/speeds up psychological disorder in the human being. Like clockwork, psychological disorder perpetuates the reign […]

Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus: A reflection of oral tradition and socio-historical realities

Though the freshest of the literary genres in Africa, African fiction is currently the most pervasive genre in the continent. Popularly seen as a foreign genre imported into the continent, African fiction has evolved over the years with the ingenuity of African writers who have developed it and made it uniquely African by blending “the […]

A brief review of Niyi Osundare’s ‘Wife Batterer’s Blues’

‘Wife Batterer’s Blues’is a thirty line, six stanza poem written by Niyi Osundare. The poem’s focus is on one of the crudest and brutish acts perpetrated by men in the modern society: wife battering. Stylistically, as characteristic of Osundare, the poem starts on a note of ‘suspense-creating’ strings of rhetorical questions asking the wife batterer […]

A brief review of A Blessing in Disguise by Ifeanyi Ifoegbuna

Title: A Blessing in Disguise Author: Ifeanyi Ifoegbuna Publisher: Lantern Books Country: Nigeria Language: English Genre: Children’s Fiction (Lantern Health Series) Category: Pre-teen Publication Year: 1996 revised/reprinted: 2009 Pages: 43 ISBN: 978-978-142-992-7 A Blessing in Disguise narrates the story of Mr. James, a wealthy merchant, Jenny, his beautiful wife and their two daughters. The story starts with Jenny, a six. . . You need to login […]

A brief review of Happy Days Ahead by Anuli Ausbeth-Ajagu

Title: Happy Days Ahead Author: Anuli Ausbeth-Ajagu Illustrator: Kola Fayemi Publisher: Lantern Books Country: Nigeria Language: English Genre: Children’s Fiction (Lantern Adventure) Category: Pre-teen Publication Year: 2006, revised/reprinted: 2015 Pages: 71 ISBN: 978-142-978-1 Happy Days Ahead by Anuli Ausberth-Agagu centres on. . . You need to login to continue reading this post. Register if you don’t have an account.

Naming in Yoruba culture

“What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name shall smell as well”—William Shakespeare The above quote by the renowned English poet/playwright, William Shakespeare, underplays the significance of names. It sees the relationship between a name and its referent as arbitrary and inconsequential. At its best interpretation, the quote […]

The politics of plundering: Reviewing Niyi Osundare’s ‘The Emperor and the DollarRain’

Introduction Niyi Osundare is a distinguished professor of English, a prolific poet in whose hands poetry fires more than Avtomat Kalashnikova- AK-47. ‘The Emperor and the DollarRain’ is one of the most recent of his poetic vituperations. The poem is divided in to two parts, each part containing five (5) six-line stanzas making 60 lines […]

A review of ‘The Lost Beach’ by Patience Ezinwoke

Author            Patience Ezinwoke Title                The Lost Beach Country          Nigeria Language       English Genre             Fiction (Lantern Adventure series) Category        Pre-teen Published       2014 by Lantern Books. . . You need to login to continue reading this post. Register if you don’t have an account.