Dzekashu MacViban Cache by Minna Salami: Weedmark Publishing; 2013, ISBN-13: 978-1-291-31161-7. When Nigerian-Swedish writer Minna Salami released a slim collection of poetry on Valentine’s day last year, I immediately recalled that I’d read her poems sometime in 2010 on the…
Online Content
The Joys of Somali Poetry: the Beauteous Melancholy of Warsan Shire’s Poetry
Dzekashu MacViban Warsan Shire at the Kwani? 2012 Literary Festival. Photo credit: Paul Munene & Kwani Trust 2012 With the clarity of retrospection, when I look back at the 2012 Kwani? Literary Festival which took place in Nairobi, I realize…
Culture Ebene, Stone Karim and a Revenge Narrative
Dzekashu MacViban Stone Karim at the Institut Français de Haïti Writing for Culture Ebene in 2012, Tatla Mbetbo’s piece “Le slam camer est stone” (Cameroonian spoken word is Stone) reads more like a “revenge narrative” rather than a journalistic piece.…
Afrikan Luv Unapologetically Flaunts its African-[ness]
Dzekashu MacViban As a latecomer to the Cameroonian musical scene, hip-hop has been on a gradual but steady rise in an over-congested milieu where, according to Kangsen Feka Wakai, “for at least two decades, it would play fifth fiddle to…
The Spoken Word Scene in Cameroon: From Poetry to Poetography
A shorter version of this article was originally commissioned by the Goethe-Institut and published on www.goethe.de Dzekashu MacViban Black Alice. Photo Credit: Black Alice For many years, spoken word in Cameroon was like the anecdotal man with the iron…
Two Poems by Nfor E. Njinyoh
Design Error I am a broken toy Shipped late From the factory and have never Caught up with the toys from My batch. Like a limping duck, I lag behind, trying to catch an eye. On sale At…
Jovi: A New Chapter in Cameroonian Hiphop
Last year, the Cameroonian hip-hop scene took a major step in consolidating its place in the African hip-hop world with MuMak’s release of Jovi’s self-produced debut album, H.I.V (Humanity Is Vanishing). Before Jovi’s emergence, no solo Cameroonian hip-hop act, especially…
Undermining African Intellectual and Artistic Rights: Shakira, Zangalewa & the 2010 World Cup Anthem.
Dibussi dissects the cavalier attitude towards African intellectual property and indigenous natural resources plagiarized and/or exploited with little or no compensation, as well as the ramifications thereof.
Editorial 03
For many, the “boom generation” of Latin American writing (1960s and 1970s) which ushered in huge international recognition of Latin America serves as a mixed blessing because, on the one hand it produced writers like as Alejo Carpentier, Julio Cortázar,…
Editorial 02
A new partnership marked the beginning of the year, as The Ofi Press Magazine, edited by Jack Little, joined forces with Bakwa and there is a collaborative issue forthcoming in December, wherein Bakwa will showcase Mexican writers while the Ofi…
