Written in 1979, Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, patriarchy takes a sobering look at societal resistance to women’s shifting roles in pre-independent Nigeria, colonialism’s impact on African culture, and the notion of pregnancy as the ultimate prize and pride of womanhood.
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Comedy is booming in Nigeria, having morphed from a side hustle in the mid-nineties to a serious, full-fledged business. But as with most male-dominated fields, the country's comedy scene has a misogyny problem.
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Thirty-five years after Chinua Achebe published The Trouble with Nigeria, Nigeria continues to grapple with the same problems enumerated in his essay, thanks to poor leadership.
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Elnathan John’s debut novel is a coming-of-age story set in northern Nigeria. Its simple, unembellished prose is narrated by Dantala, the smart, inquisitive street kid and Islamic scholar, and presents a convincing picture of how poverty, corruption and brutality perpetrated by security forces have bred disaffection and insurgency groups in the country.
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His heart pounded so hard he couldn’t hear the TV. With the force of a pestle striking a mortar, it threatened to burst through his chest as he retrieved the proposal from his safe. Sweat dotted the area his moustache would have covered had his barber not wheedled him into shaving it off last weekend.
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