In school, teacher says, “speaking and writing fluently in English is the test of knowledge.” That the inscribed tongue situated inside my oral cavity by my ancestors is prohibited, that if I keep tonguing my tongue, I will be a jackleg. So, to prove that I am not a jackleg, I try to speak in…
The first time I stumbled across Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, it was through my sister. She was preparing for the UTME, and the book was one of either WAEC or JAMB’s recommended texts. I still remember spotting it on her desk and wondering, “Purple hibiscus? What kind of flower is that?” Growing up,…
Ghostroots by Pemi Aguda is a hauntingly beautiful collection of short stories. In each of these stories, the ordinary flirts excessively with the supernatural. It’s very unsettling, but very human too. Altogether, there are twelve stories in this collection, but a few struck me so deeply that I had to sit still, staring into space,…
If you’ve never thought there was a word for not wanting to make small talk, for always wanting to skip the party, and just be yourself and be by yourself most of the time, then congratulations, you’re most likely in the right place, looking for books for introverts. I’ve always gravitated toward activities that didn’t…
This is one hell of an opening line; the kind of sentence that immediately pulls you in, giving you no choice but to keep reading, and it does a fine job of foreshadowing the grief and mystery that course through Akwaeke Emezi’s The Death of Vivek Oji. The book begins with a devastating scene: Vivek…