Early in 1977, thousands of artists, writers, musicians, activists and scholars from Africa and the black diaspora assembled in Lagos for FESTAC ’77, the 2nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. With a radically ambitious agenda underwritten by Nigeria’s newfound oil wealth, FESTAC ’77 would unfold as a complex, glorious and excessive […]
Tag Archives | Akin Adesokan
The Second German Chronic is Here
The second German-language edition of the Chronic takes up the theme of new cartographies. The 32-page publication features translations of maps and selected writings from previous editions of the English Chronic produced in 2014 and 2015. Contributors include Binyavanga Wainaina, Yemisi Aribisala, Billy Kahora, Jesse Weaver Shipley, Wendell Marsh, Agri Ismail, Moses März, Elnathan John, Stacy Hardy, Sarah Jappie and […]
The Amazing Career of Passport Number B957848
By Akin Adesokan (For Larry Siems & Aimee Liu) I The wait would have begun on the line at the British Consulate in Lagos, where dreams collapsed from standing too long in the sun. But the story of standing in line at the AmEmbassy on Eleke Crescent (renamed Louis Farrakhan Street, and re-renamed Walter Carrington […]
Roger and Me
Akin Adesokan writes in exaltation of the game of tennis, the sheer artistry of arguably its greatest and most storied male player and his 24 tricks of the forehand. With his second-round loss to an unknown Ukrainian player in this year’s Wimbledon, tennis great Roger Federer missed reaching the quarter-finals of a grand slam event […]
Timbuktu: An Old African Saying
By Akin Adesokan The news comes through to enthusiasts of African cinema eagerly following events at the 2015 Festival Panafricain du Cinéma de Ouagadougou (FESPACO) in real time: according to the magazine Jeune Afrique, the organisers of the famous festival have decided to withdraw Timbuktu, the much praised new film by director Abderrahmane Sissako, from […]
Method After Fela
by Akin Adesokan “You reckon a guy just goes and cuts down a guy of timber. You gorra do it proper man or you won’t live to cut another log. Dead men tell no tales kid. Until that guy is sawn up and turned to a bench or table, the spirit guy is still struggling inside it, […]