Books are human’s best friends, apart from dogs, of course! However, our perspectives have also seen an evolution with the evolving world. Earlier, physical books were our ultimate necessity. But, with e-book scanning services, you can have your favorite book in your pocket! From saving time to saving space, e-books have adjusted to how we […]
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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 […]
Written by Maryam Otuh
Have you ever felt like if you step into a room full of people you will fall flat on your face by mysteriously tripping on your own flat shoes and the whole room will laugh at you? That’s what social anxiety feels like. It feels like you will fall every time you take a step […]
Written by Hauwa Saleh
Abstract: Traditionally, the Hausas believed in divergent number of ways in which an individual might acquire madness, or be mistaken as mad rather. It is beyond just the question of spiritually possessed by jinn(s). Hence, that is the most recognized of all causes of a mental break down among the Hausas. However, factors such as depression, […]
Written by Abu-Ubaida Sani
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. […]
Written by Abu-Ubaida Sani
The novelist and famous feminist Chimamanda Adichie once wrote that, “A woman at a certain age who is unmarried, our society teaches her to see it as a deep personal failure. And a man, after a certain age isn’t married, we just think he hasn’t come around to making his pick”. Apparently, this is a […]
Written by Raheemah Arogundade
Africa, as we may well know, is the bedrock of civilisation and so it comes as no surprise that it is a continent laden with rich history and savoury culture. One thing peculiar about the African civilisation is its art and architecture ranging from the astounding civilization of the Egyptian Empire seen in their architecture […]
Written by Hafsah Dauda
There are ten thousand ways to go insane in this life and writing is one of them. Do you blame a person who leaves behind a bit of his soul and sanity in everything he writes? But if we are going to go insane, let’s go insane beautifully. Let our madness set our souls on […]
Written by Hauwa Saleh
Don’t you want to pick up a novel and read the words Wi-fi, Chanel, iPhone, Slayage, Egusi and Africa all in the same line? Don’t you want to write your language without explaining what it means, be African in your writing without apologising for it? I bet you won’t mind being able to quote your […]
Written by Hafsah Dauda
It’s no news that college textbooks do not come cheap. While grappling with tuition fees and living expenses, as a student, you also have to deal with the financial reality of buying textbooks. Online sites like Amazon and Chegg have become cheaper alternatives, but even then, the cost of textbooks still add up to a […]
Written by Jamila Mustapha
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 […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
Title: Red Sun Author: Dolapo Lawrence Genre: Fiction Pages: 290 Published: 2014 Publisher: Outskirts Press Language: English ISBN-10: 147870568X Introduction Red Sun is a story of the travails of war and the triumph of love; the essence of peace. It is a fictional recreation of the inter-ethnic war in Darfur (an “independent sultanate for several […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
Abstract Against the backdrop of the crucial issue of class politics in the society, this paper examines and discusses William Shakespeare’s portrayal of class struggle via his play Coriolanus which represents the continued effort of the oppressive class to perpetuate its dominance and the resistant effort of the oppressed to destroy the reign of oppression. […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
So many definitions of literature have been put up. In the context of this discourse, literature (imaginative literature) is writing that is considered to be an art form, or any single writing deemed to have artistic or intellectual value, often due to deploying language in ways that differ from ordinary usage (Wikipedia). Cambridge Dictionary defines […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
One of the most emphasized catchphrases in the world of academia is ‘Contribution to Knowledge’. This underscores the essence of academic scholarship: contributing to knowledge to make the world a better place. Thus, scholars/students who want to remain relevant in their respective fields must be on their toes, looking for gaps to fill in the […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
Proverbs are short witty statements that give a position or an opinion a sharp focus and vivid understanding and comprehension. Usually, it expresses timeless truths. In Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God, there is an extensive usage of proverbs. The proverbs are not just engaged; rather, they are creatively injected into the narrative to domesticate the […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
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 […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
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 […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
‘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 […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
To re-report simply means to ‘report again’, that is, to provide a new report of certain events –which may be different from the earlier report(s). To ‘re-report’ therefore implies that there are some earlier reports either to buttress or challenge. A discussion of this nature should perhaps begin with some necessary questions: who are those […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
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 […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
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.
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
I write because I want to write. I write because I have a story to tell. There is this urge always to write and put things down. I do not presume that I have a mission. If you continue to read my books, maybe you could find the mission. But I continue to write because […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
Students in the current age have got no excuse for failure. Technology has radically removed all the barriers hitherto encountered in the academic world. Students are no longer limited to their classroom notes and outdated/ancient textbooks imposingly piled up in their schools’ libraries. There are now easily accessible online resources on virtually every field of […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
“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 […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
David Mandessi Diop (1927-1960) was a Bordeaux-born Senegalese poet. He spent most of his short life in France and had a second hand knowledge of Africa. He was a prominent poet of the negritude movement—a movement that was preoccupied with the rehabilitation of the black man, the affirmation of his qualities before the white world […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
Proverb, by definition, is a piece of folk wisdom expressed with terseness and charms: it is characterized with the economic use of words and the sharpness of focus and touch of literary/poetic beauty. The constructions of proverbs can be traced to the creativity of artistes at particular periods of time in human history. It is […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
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 […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
Author/ Publisher Lantern Books Title Kekere Country Nigeria Language English Genre Children’s Fiction (Lantern Fairy Tales) Category Pre-teen Year of Publication 2014 by Lantern Books Pages 46 ISBN […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
Omotayo Yusuf is my friend. The one I am proud of. Together we navigated the literary ocean at Obafemi Awolowo University. Omotayo is a storyteller with literary simplicity, the kind akin to that of the great African literary icon; Chinua Achebe. When he writes, the English language flows and slickly draws in his hand as […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
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.
Written by Nurudeen Lawal
What will Nigeria do when oil has passed out of favour? What shall we hold as lasting gains from many decades of oil wealth? …very soon, the world will tell Nigeria to drink its crude oil Oil was discovered in Nigeria in 1956 at Oloibiri in the Niger Delta after half a century exploration. The […]
Written by Nurudeen Lawal