Brittle Paper

Brittle Paper is a weekly online literary magazine that serves as an "African literary blog" published in English. Its mission is to cultivate a lively African literary community. The magazine was established in 2010 by Ainehi Edoro, who was a doctoral student at Duke University and is currently an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Since its inception, Brittle Paper has featured a diverse range of works, including fiction, poetry, essays, creative nonfiction, and photography from both well-known and emerging African writers and artists from the continent and beyond. Recognized as a member of The Guardian Books Network, it has been hailed as "the village square of African literature," "Africa’s leading literary journal," and "one of the most talked-about literary publications in Africa." In 2014, Publishers Weekly named it a Go-To Book Blog, highlighting it as "an essential source of news about new works by writers of color outside of the U.S."

English

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#17208

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Articles

Sinners: From Lagos to Louisiana, The Rema-Beyonce-Coogler Pipeline | Sharon Rose | Essay

1 week ago | brittlepaper.com | Sharon Rose

In the opening scene of Ryan Coogler’s new film, Sinners, we see Sammie, a preacher’s son, beaten and wounded, arriving at his father’s church. A congregation adorned in white; except Sammie and his father, the preacher. The preacher holds him in his embrace and asks him to denounce sin and accept Christ by dropping what is left of his guitar: a symbol we will come to find represents the life of an African American person and all its joys, loves, freedom, and troubles.
Sierra Leonean’s Yalie Saweda Kamara and Zambia’s Mubanga Kalimamukwento Are Finalists for the 2025 Firecracker Awards

2 weeks ago | brittlepaper.com | Ainehi Edoro
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at the Met Gala: A New Kind of Literary Influence

3 weeks ago | brittlepaper.com | Ainehi Edoro

“Writing my latest book, Dream Count, made me think about clothes again,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote recently in an Elle.com feature. The sentence is quiet and personal, but it offers a useful lens on her appearance at the 2025 Met Gala. Adichie’s red carpet moment is being widely read as a fashion debut, but it is just as much a literary one.
Saara El-Arifi on Romantasy and the Politics of Genre Labeling

3 weeks ago | brittlepaper.com | Ainehi Edoro

British-Sudanese-Ghanaian fantasy author Saara El-Arifi is a major voice in the speculative fiction space. Her debut novel, The Final Strife (2022) is an epic fantasy, drawing inspiration from African and Arabian mythology. Her latest work, Faebound (2024) is a shift into the hot new genre of Romantasy, a hybrid of romance and fantasy that has exploded in visibility thanks to titles like Fourth Wing and A Court of Thorns and Roses.
Abi Daré Wins £10,000 Inaugural Climate Fiction Prize for Novel Set in Rural Nigeria

3 weeks ago | brittlepaper.com | Ainehi Edoro

Nigerian author Abi Daré has been awarded the first-ever Climate Fiction Prize for her second novel, And So I Roar. The £10,000 prize, which recognizes fiction that addresses the climate crisis in fresh and impactful ways, was presented at a ceremony in London. And So I Roar was published by Sceptre in 2024. It revisits the life of Adunni, the teenage protagonist from Daré’s breakout debut The Girl with the Louding Voice.
Xan van Rooyen Wins 2024 South African Horrorfest Bloody Parchment Competition

3 weeks ago | brittlepaper.com | Ainehi Edoro

The results are in for the 2024 South African Horrorfest Bloody Parchment Short Story Competition, a cornerstone of the country’s premier horror and speculative fiction event. This year’s winner is Xan van Rooyen for the story “Splinters of the Schism”, praised by judges for its originality and chilling craft. Xan van Rooyen is a South African-born, Finland-based writer of speculative fiction whose work spans aetherpunk, cyberpunk, and African futurisms.
Tina Knowles’s Book Cover Art Was Painted by A Nigerian Artist

3 weeks ago | brittlepaper.com | Ainehi Edoro

At Brittle Paper, we love covers and believe it is a unique aspect of a book’s story, so when Tina Knowles’s memoir Matriarch was published in April, the cover caught our attention. The cover art features a painted portrait of Knowles seated against a background of blooming white flowers and turquoise sky.
Chimamanda Adichie Meets Her Lagos Readers at a Sold-Out Event with 600 Attendees

3 weeks ago | brittlepaper.com | Ainehi Edoro

On Friday, April 25th, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie held a book signing in Lagos for the Nigerian release of Dream Count. The event was hosted by the Nigerian bookstore chain Roving Heights at their Landmark venue and drew a large, mostly young group of attendees. The crowd of happy fans gathered at the pavilion to meet Adichie. The Dream Count sold out its initial release in Nigeria and became an instant bestseller.
Excavation Confirms Griot Stories of Historic West African Kingdom

1 month ago | brittlepaper.com | Ainehi Edoro

Griots are oral historians who transmit history and ideas through stories, poetry, and music. For centuries they have passed on stories of Kaabu, an influential precolonial kingdom in West Africa. The stories cover its rise and spectacular destruction of its capital, Kansala. Now, new archaeological work is uncovering the remains of that legendary city in present-day Guinea-Bissau. According to NPR, the excavation is being led by Sirio Canós-Donnay, an archaeologist at the University of Valencia.
Four African African Writers Remember Pope Francis

1 month ago | brittlepaper.com | Ainehi Edoro

Pope Francis passed away on April 21, 2025 and the funeral held a week later. There has been mourning worldwide for a man who many believed to be a spiritual leader and who affected the lives many beyond the walls of the Church. For some African writers—Okey Ndibe, Chika Unigwe, Yvonne Owuor, and Enuma Okoro—they remember the Pope specifically as a reader, who loved poetry and believed that writers help us think about the human condition and draw nearer to truth.