Mutiny at Oxford

The 16th Caine Prize for African Writing was awarded to Zambia’s Namwali Serpell. In an unusual gesture, Serpell decided to “share the prize” with her fellow shortlistees. What does this gesture mean for the prize?   The annual Caine Prize Dinner had moved. A change... read more

Remembering Tuco

  “When you want to shoot, shoot, shoot, don’t talk.” That is perhaps one of the most memorable line from a movie delivered in the 1966 Spaghetti Western The Good, The Bad and the Ugly by the ebullient bandit Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez, simply known as... read more

Achebe’s Long Journey Home

There was nothing more striking about Chinua Achebe’s funeral than the ambiance  for how does one mourn a man who had become an ancestor while still very much alive? And perhaps caught in this conundrum, events to mark the funeral, euphemistically dubbed... read more