My Beauty Best Teacher

The defining experience of Chinua Achebe’s life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967–1970. The conflict was infamous for its savage impact on the Biafran people, Chinua Achebe’s people, many of whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their borders. By then, Chinua Achebe was already a world-renowned novelist, with a young family to protect. He took the Biafran side in the conflict and served his government as a roving cultural ambassador, from which vantage he absorbed the war’s full horror. Immediately after, Achebe took refuge in an academic post in the United States, and for more than forty years he has maintained a considered silence on the events of those terrible years, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Now, decades in the making, comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa’s most fateful events, from a writer whose words and courage have left an enduring stamp on world literature.

Achebe masterfully relates his experience, both as he lived it and how he has come to understand it. He begins his story with Nigeria’s birth pangs and the story of his own upbringing as a man and as a writer so that we might come to understand the country’s promise, which turned to horror when the hot winds of hatred began to stir. To read There Was a Country is to be powerfully reminded that artists have a particular obligation, especially during a time of war. All writers, Achebe argues, should be committed writers—they should speak for their history, their beliefs, and their people. Marrying history and memoir, poetry and prose, There Was a Country is a distillation of vivid firsthand observation and forty years of research and reflection. Wise, humane, and authoritative, it will stand as definitive and reinforce Achebe’s place as one of the most vital literary and moral voices of our age

Image courtesy of Army Of God

This is the first chapter of Army of God, a non-fiction graphic novel about the Lord's Resistance Army that has terrorized the Congo. Based on reporting by David Axe from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2010, the comic explores the history of the LRA with eyewitness accounts from captives and those working to stop the destructive militia. Each chapter will focus on a different character and their role in the saga, from diplomats to LRA soldiers to the women and children they capture. The first chapter recounts the Congo's long history of colonialism, corruption, and strife that have set the stage for the conflict of today. The artwork is by Tim Hamilton.

Taiye Selasi, a young Ghanian writer talks to the Daily Beast from the Jaipur Festival about the challenges of the young African novelist and the unique connection she sees between the Indian readers & African literature.

© Jeff Hutchens for the Open Society Institute

Nigerian political analyst and writer Ike Okonta examines the failure of democratic and civic institutions in Nigeria four decades after the end of the bloody civil war in Biafra. As an Open Society Fellow, Okonta, an expert in ethnic identity and resource conflict in West Africa, is looking at the lingering effects of the war and the increase in oil revenues on the formation of the post-war Nigerian state.

A culmination of three years of research and writing, the book investigates the curious fact that African art history largely disregards African art collections owned by Africans or held in Africa. The goal of the book is to review the reasons for this marginalization and use a notable African art collection, the Femi Akinsanya African Art Collection, based in Lagos, Nigeria to examine how such collections might be recovered for art history.

Uche Okonkwo courtesy of Farafina

They all liked to call themselves bad guys, but she knew Toju; he wasn’t one of those bad ones. He only talked tough and acted like them when he was with them, so he could fit in. With her he was gentle and sweet and sensitive, just the way she liked her men. He had only joined Triple X for protection; he didn’t want anyone to ride on him. And he wasn’t even that active sef. He just coasted along; present enough in their midst to be seen, absent enough to be forgotten. She didn’t bother to ask how come, then, he was the Capo’s right hand man...[continue reading]

Robert Irwin begins his recently published Memoirs of a Dervish with the words, “It was in my first year at Oxford that I decided that I wanted to become a Muslim saint”. His entertaining and enlightening memoir recounts his travels in post-independence Algeria, his involvement in Islamic mystical orders there and the various “ludicrous and half-witted aspects of the hippy sixties” he encounters during his time as a student in Oxford and London...[continue reading]

When Teju Cole began work on his current project, a non-fiction narrative of Lagos, Nigeria, his African hometown and one of the largest and fastest growing cities in the world, he encountered a problem. He wanted to move beyond statistics to the experience of the individual Lagosian. But how to capture, in any meaningful way, the variety and abundance of life in the city? He began reading the daily newspapers (eleven in all), and found himself drawn to the small items—petty crimes, metro reports. Here, he thought, was Lagos in the raw. He determined to make use of the stuff, though he realized that it wouldn't quite fit the book.

...Flipped Eye publishes original poetry and prose on a not-for-profit model. The not-for-profit approach has allowed flipped eye to focus on developing new writers with potential, thus facilitating the emergence of truly unique literary talent. We are dedicated to producing consistently high quality fiction, non-fiction and related products, with a focus on poetry and authors who are comfortable with a live audience. This means that, while we seek to publish high quality literature, our authors are signed, not only based on how well they write, but also how well they communicate with an audience. This is because we consider conversation to be the oldest and most enduring form of literary creation.

One Hen empowers kids to become social entrepreneurs who make a difference for themselves and the world. We do this by equipping educators with educational resources to inspire kids to four values: financial responsibility, personal initiative, global awareness and giving back-website

Desperate efforts by governments to widen the socio-economic factors in Africa are likely to become a fiasco if adequate attention is not given to creative successful entrepreneurs. Building the future of Africa is a multi-book project being implemented in 53 countries in Africa. Contributing to education of young entrepreneurs through vision shapers sharing experiences and expectations in building a bright future is one of the challenges Africa is facing for its development.
Entrepreneurs in Africa are facing the challenge of leveraging necessary connections and accessing quality education to implement their ideas and projects. Building a unique and powerful ecosystem for sharing connections, ideas and motivating a new generation of entrepreneurs in Africa is what the project seeks to achieve. Bringing to light inspirational stories, adventures, success stories, bright minded entrepreneurs made in Africa could help create the necessary tribe working with joining hands to challenge the world.