From its poignant beginning in “Lost Stars” a story about love and it’s fleeting, transient nature to the gritty, raw musical prose encapsulated in “In The City”, a tale of survival set in the alleyways of the waterside. A Broken People’s Playlist is a mosaic of stories about living, loving and hurting through very familiar sounds, in very familiar ways and finding healing in the most unlikely places.The stories are also part-homage and part-love letter to Port Harcourt (the city which most of them are set in). The prose is distinctive as it is concise and unapologetically Nigerian. And because the collection is infused with the magic of evocative storytelling, everyone is promised a story, a character, to move or haunt them.

    After a rape and unwanted pregnancy leave her exiled from her family in Kano, thwarting her plans to go to university, she is sent to her aunt's in Lagos and pressured into a marriage with an older man. When their whirlwind romance descends into abuse and indignity, Ogadinma is forced to channel her independence and resourcefulness to escape a fate that appears all but inevitable. Ogadinma, the UK debut by Ukamaka Olisakwe, introduces a heroine for whom it is impossible not to root, and announces the author as a gifted chronicler of the patriarchal experience.‘An intimate and dazzling exploration of the life and times of a young Nigerian woman whose move to the capital city of Lagos leads to a series of encounters, which are by turns disorienting, revelatory and tragic.’ Christopher Merrill, author of Self-Portrait with Dogwood‘Written in vivid, engaging prose, this is the story of one woman’s journey to independence.’ Chinelo Okparanta, author of Under the Udala Trees and Happiness, Like Water: Stories

    In search of a better future, Arès embarks on an epic journey across northern Africa with Europe as his goal. He reaches Rabat, Morocco, where he joins a desperate community of exiles fighting for survival in a hostile land. While Arès risks everything to make it to Spain, Simon gradually awakens to a subterranean world of violence that threatens his comfortable expat life and fledgling romance with a Moroccan singer. Part colorful portrait of life in the Maghreb, part astonishing tale of hope and perseverance, The Fire in his Wake carries the reader from the inner sanctums of the UN to the hazardous realities faced by the refugees in the streets and on their risky crossings to Europe. When a storm gathers at the UNHCR, and the ghosts of the Congo’s violence surface in Rabat, the two men find themselves on a collision course, setting the stage for the novel’s unforgettable and genre-busting ending. Eye-opening, suspenseful, and full of unexpected humor, Wolff brings his personal experiences as an aid worker to this unforgettable story of two remarkable individuals.Praise for Fire in His Wake “A dazzling first novel about a Congolese refugee…The Fire in His Wake addresses pressing themes of our times—migration, human rights, and the refugee crisis. Splendidly ambitious both in narrative scope and formal innovation….Wolff has managed, with enviable dexterity and sensitivity, to tell the story of an African without reducing his humanity or pretending to comprehend or sublimate his suffering.” —Nyuol Lueth Tong, editor-in-chief of the Bare Life Review, a journal of immigrant and refugee literature “The Fire in His Wake is a work of extraordinary empathetic and imaginative power. With a lot of heart, and in vivid prose, Spencer Wolff has done that brave and difficult—and ever more rare—thing we most need our novelists to do: painstakingly imagine himself into lives and circumstances starkly different than his own. It is an astonishing debut.” —Thomas Chatterton Williams, author of Self-Portrait in Black and White “A devastating and infuriating story written with compassion, style, and grace. Beyond the harrowing depictions of torture and war, this chilling tale of a heartbreaking life is, at its core, a struggle to come to terms with something much worse: the maddening hypocrisy at our borders, the violence that Western powers inflict on the stories of refugees who arrive at their doors.” —Dina Nayeri, author of The Ungrateful Refugee “At this dark hour of shuttered borders and hearts, can the novel still expose a human truth that finds no footing in statistics or news reports? With incandescent lyricism and wry fury, Spencer Wolff’s The Fire in His Wake builds to its remarkable answer: only by confronting the existential fullness of today’s refugees, migrants, and so many abandoned aspirants—the picaresque comedy alongside the tragedy—can we see that it is those of us living in the shadow of fences and walls who are truly adrift. —Greg Jackson, author of Prodigals: Stories

    Those Who Live in Cages captures an astonishingly intimate view of life in Eldorado Park, a coloured township south of Johannesburg, through five women - Bertha, Kaylynn, Laverne, Janice and Raquel.These unforgettable characters' lives intersect as they attempt to do the most important thing: survive another day in "The Park"

    The only problem is . . . the band no longer exists.Rushdy is a disaffected secondary school teacher and the son of an original Kamanga King. Determined to see a life beyond his own home, he sets out to revive the band. Aided by his unreliable best friend, all too soon an unlikely group are on their way, knowing the eyes of their country are on them.As the group moves from the familiarity of Khartoum to the chaos of Donald Trump's America, Jamal Mahjoub weaves a gently humorous and ultimately universal tale of music, belonging and love.

    The series seeks to identify the best poetry written by African poets working today, and it is especially interested in featuring poets who have not yet published their first full-length book of poetry.The eleven poets included in this box set are: Michelle Angwenyi, Afua Ansong, Adedayo Agarau, Fatima Camara, Sadia Hassan, Safia Jama, Henneh Kyereh Kwaku, Nadra Mabrouk, Nkateko Masinga, Jamila Osman, and Tryphena Yeboah.

    Both a summation of new photographic practice from the last decade and a compelling survey of the ways in which contemporary African photographers are engaging with ideas of “Africanness,” Africa State of Mind is a timely collection of those photographers seeking to capture the experience of what it means to “be African.”Presented in four thematic sections—“Hybrid Cities,” “Inner Landscapes,” “Zones of Freedom,” and “Myth and Memory”—each part presents selections of work by a new wave of African photographers who are looking both outward and inward: capturing life among the sprawling cities of the continent, turning the continent’s history into the source of resonant new myths, and exploring questions of gender, sexuality, and identity.With over 300 photographs by more than fifty photographers, Africa State of Mind is a mesmerizing survey of the most dynamic scenes in contemporary photography and an introduction to the creative figures making them.

    In this stunning addition to the Pleiades Press Translation Series, rendered in Marilyn Hacker's innovative translation from the original French, Samira Negrouche confronts a war-torn Algeria, amidst the Arab Spring, cataloguing, in her luminary genre-bending poetry, grief, exile, and revolution. Philip Metres writes, A poetic descendant of Etel Adnan, Negrouche deftly moves from poems to prose, from coasts to caravans, from surrealist landscapes to erotic interiors. Writing in the empire's language, Negrouche writes into the 'complex structure of silences' that French can't follow: 'I would like / in a faraway language / to tell you what I don't / understand.' These are imporant poems, and Hacker gives us the gift of reading them in English for the first time in a collected volume.

    Some of his troubles are self-inflicted: like his recurring entanglements in love triangles; and his unauthorised joyriding of a customer’s car which sets off a chain of dire events involving drugs, crooked politicians, and assassins. Other troubles are caused by the panorama of characters in his life, like: his sister and her dysfunctional domestic situation; the three other mechanics he employs; and the money-loving preacher who has all but taken over his home. The story is fast-paced with surprising twists and a captivating plot - a Dickenesque page-turner. This is Ebinimi’s story but it is about a lot more than him. It is an exploration of the dynamics between working-class people as they undertake a colourful tour of Yenagoa, one of Nigeria’s lesser-known cities, while using humour, sex, and music, as coping mechanisms for the everyday struggle. It is a modern-classic tale of small lives navigating a big city.

    There is anger and racial tension engulfing Brixton. Black youth are unable to find employment and young black men face daily hostile treatment from the British police During this period, Esther, a bisexual Nigerian girl with a beautiful voice and a rebellious spirit, and Elijah, the proud Yoruba son of a pastor, fall in love. In 1990, Elijah unexpectedly ends their relationship. Heartbroken, Esther travels to Chicago to pursue her music career. 18 Years Later Esther, now a retired R'N'B singer, returns to Brixton. She is searching for her abusive father, who has fled Nigeria under mysterious circumstances. By chance, she reunites with Elijah. He is now a husband, a Finance Director and leader of his late father's church. Yet he is struggling to eradicate the homophobia in his ministry while his wife's depression suffocates their marriage. Rekindling their friendship, Esther and Elijah travel across London to unravel the tragedy behind Esther's father's disappearance. Gradually, their romantic feelings for one another resurface and they begin an emotional and sexual affair, forcing them both to make a difficult choice... Partly set in South London during the 1980s and interwoven with key events that shaped Black British history during that period, A Prophet who loved Her is an entertaining, emotional and thought-provoking tale of love, identity, racism and religion.