The phone rang. I picked it up at the first beep. “Waziri, how are you?” “Fine sir. And you?” “Have they called you?” “No sir.” “These people! Don’t worry, I will sort it out.” The conversation ended within thirty seconds. This was around noon on Tuesday, 23rd February 2016. I did not have to probe. …
Glissade
Chika Chimezie
July 10, 2024
Apropos of writing an essay on the experience of plodding through a difficult time in my life, I have been thinking about what suffering means for the artist. The process of writing that essay, as one would expect, was a dark affair layered with distress and pain. I wrote in spurts, never steadily, as both …
Warsan Shire
February 13, 2023
He smokes until he sees something moving in the smoke, remembers Joy like blindness: swimming at Jazeera Beach, gorging on belonging, barwaaqo, iftiin. He remembers riding through Suuqa Bakaaraha on a motorbike, held onto by women with hair trailing behind them like black smoke. It’s raining in London again, Hassan Aden Samatar sings from a …
