You are here

Category: Artists & Reviews

Ngũgĩ wa Thiongio will succeed Vinton Cerf, known for being one of the fathers of the Internet. Cerf was the first technologist to receive the prize, with other awarded figures including the philosopher Karl Popper, oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, politician Václav Havel, writer Doris Lessing, and activist Malala Yousafzai. The prize will be awarded to the Kenyan author during the first quarter of 2020 at a ceremony chaired by Catalan president Quim Torra.  Artists & Reviews 

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o nominated as author and translator in first for International Booker

admin20 comment

Kenyan novelist’s The Perfect Nine is first work written in an indigenous African language to be longlisted Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o has become the first writer to be nominated for the International Booker prize as both author and translator of the same book, and the first nominee writing in an indigenous African language. The 83-year-old Kenyan and perennial Nobel favourite is among 13 authors nominated for the award for best translated fiction, a £50,000 prize split evenly between author and translator. Thiong’o is nominated as writer and translator of The Perfect Nine,…

Read More
prof soyinka /thenewsnigeria.com.ng Artists & Reviews 

Professor Wole Soyinka Writes a New Novel!

admin2, , 0 comment

  Wole Soyinka at 86 will publish a new novel titled ”Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth” in November this year. The news of the novel has been circulating secretively since Soyinka submitted the typescript to his publishers–BookCraft in Ibadan and Random House in New York– in June this year. Those who are close to the 1986 Nobel Laureate in Literature were expecting a new collection of poems which was in its final stage of editing, only for Soyinka to spring a big surprise with a novel of 524…

Read More
burna boy gq Artists & Reviews 

Burna Boy’s Grammy Award is a ‘big win for Africa’ and its music stars

admin2, 0 comment

It was second time lucky for Afrobeats star Burna Boy who landed a Grammy award for his album ‘Twice As Tall’ at the ceremony. Burna, real name Damini Ogulu, missed out to veteran Beninese singer, Angelique Kidjo at the 2020 awards. As he accepted the Best Global Music Album award from his home in Lagos, Nigeria, Burna, 29, declared: “This is a big win for my generation of Africans all over the world.” “This should be a lesson to every African out there: No matter where you are, no matter what you…

Read More
Artists & Reviews 

The Survivor and the Conquering Spirits of Sadjio

admin2, , 0 comment

By Fatoumata Nabie Fofana Publisher: Adelaide Books 244 Fifth Avenue Suit D27 New York, NY 10001 311 pp. Reviewed by Nvasekie N. Konneh The life we live, where we live, those we interact with on the daily basis are all stories by themselves. The more we live, the more stories there are about us or others we interact with. In this case, everyone has stories to tell, either orally or literarily. On one occasion or another, many of our stories are told orally to our friends and relatives. The oral stories take…

Read More
Artists & Reviews 

Echoes of Time: Promoting Liberian Literary Heritage

admin20 comment

Echoes of Time: Promoting Liberian Literary Heritage By Eduardo de Bosco To talk of literature in Africa, one cannot but mention the west coast and a number of countries on the east, south, as well as other regions of the continent. Names such as Chinua Achebe, Camara Laye, Ayei Kwei Armah, Nadine Gordimer, Buchi Emecheta, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Nuruddin Farah, the West African Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka and a litany of names are bound to hit the eardrums at the mention of African literature. What is not so known on…

Read More
Artists & Reviews 

Book Review: Alex Haley’s Root, an Author’s Odyssey

admin2, , , 0 comment

Book Author:  Adam Henig Whenever I think of Alex Haley, my mind goes to two of his books, The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Roots. That’s because of the profound impact these two books have had on me as an African and millions of others around the world. My first encounter with Roots was in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in the mid 80s. As a student from Liberia, I had gone to the Ivory Coast for vacation. Ivory Coast being a French speaking country, I watched the French translation of the…

Read More
Looking back, Baroe says the pandemic gave her some time to perfect her craft – and the album. “I had to put stop to it due to the Outbreak of the Pandemic; but I also used the time to restructure and improve.” Born in Liberia, Princess moved to Ghana with family in 2005. Her love and passion has helped her through some trying times. “I have been blessed with an amazing vocal and being in Ghana helped me a lot. Artists & Reviews 

Liberian Singer Princess Barrolle to release long awaited album

admin2, , 0 comment

Staff Report   ACCRA – Princess Barrolle, the Liberian-born Afro-Beat/Reggae,and Soul singer are upbeat about the launch of her upcoming album, Desire, a project two years in the making that showcases her vocal range as a solid artist and performer. Based in Accra, Ghana for the past few years, Princess, popularly known as Baroe, with previous hits Dream, Intruder,  the “Prove Your Love” collaboration with CIC and “Hold Me”, has been busy over the past two years writing and producing songs for Desire, which was held back due to the Covid-19…

Read More
Calloway was the first African-American musician to sell a million records from a single song. In 1993, Calloway received the National Medal of Arts from the United States Congress. He posthumously received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. His song "Minnie the Moocher" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and added to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry in 2019. He is also inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame and the International Jazz Hall of Fame.10. Artists & Reviews 

Cab Calloway and Marcus Garvey, Part One

admin2, , , 0 comment

  Dag Walker In the 1920 and 30s, Harlem, Manhattan, was hopping, but for some, Liberia was hoping. The music scene was on fire, as was the imagination of one man who hoped to change the future of Black America, to lead the people back to Africa. Cab Calloway led the band; Marcus Garvey led the charge to Liberia. Folks were jitterbugging: across the Cotton Club dance floor; folks were steaming shipboard across the Atlantic Ocean. Two leaders, one destined for musical fame, the other destined for disgrace and imprisonment.…

Read More
Eduardo De Bosco Artists & Reviews 

Two Young Liberian Poets in the Literary Spotlight

admin2, 0 comment

A week or two ago I came across a headline that reads as followed: Young Liberian Poet Wins International Award in Literature. That young Liberian poet is Eduardo De Bosco. A young Liberian determined to burst out of the literary obscurity of Liberia. There is another young Liberian, Karn Jeremy Karn whose poetry chapbook has been accepted for publication by the editors of the New Generation of African Poets. This is certainly good news out of Liberia, a nation whose literary tradition goes as far back as the founding of…

Read More
That re-enchantment, in the mood of our age, now appears as a form of sentimentalism. In selecting Gluck, we are not just honouring a craft; we are privileging a literature whose job is to resist redemption or enchantment. It is not to save us, but to expose the fact (as her best collections, Ararat, Meadowlands, and The Wild Iris, remind us) that we are entirely at the mercy of our own passions; even a God would give up ordering them. Artists & Reviews 

Nobel to Gluck privileges a literature whose job is to resist redemption or enchantment

admin2, , 0 comment

  Written by Pratap Bhanu Mehta The Nobel Prize for Literature has an air of imperious idiosyncrasy about it. There is often an evident, willed parochialism about the history and human experience, genre and geography, from which great literature emerges. The Committee will often stretch its imagination to discover some new avant garde in Europe, a choice so niche and strange that it only underscores the Committee’s provincialism. There is always the philosophical canard that any citation carries: Great literature must have universal appeal or relate to themes of universal significance.…

Read More