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A small thread from my work itsflaminghydra On Thursday, July 17, 2025, my friend Hussain Ahmed sent me a Daily Mail article written by Sonya Gugliara headlined, “Straight white author’s career finally takes off after he tells woke publishers he’s gender queer Nigerian.”

The fact that she made it onto that list despite her gendered and colonial backdrop, and despite the cultural and sociopolitical barriers around her is an achievement greater than any accolade anyone could bestow. She was an icon. A literal icon. To stand alongside those names,

Welcome to the Green Room with the Lagos nostalgist Dami Ajayi We had a short interview with Dami Ajayi at #AkeFest24, where he shared what freedom means to him—and how we can all find it. Join us for #AkeFest25, happening 20–22 November 2025, themed #ReclaimingTruth.

A Genocide Scholar on the Case Against Israel nytimes.com/2025/07/23/opi… via @NYTOpinion

relatability in art is so overrated. especially in an era where people want the artist to capture their niche micro-identities for the art to be “relatable”. i’ll choose resonance over relatability every time!

“The African Literature Ecosystem Used to Be Unstoppable. What Went Wrong?” For OkayAfrica I spent the past twoo months trying to answer that in my latest feature filled with incredible insight from Troy Onyango Dami Ajayi Aju nice and Judith Atibi bit.ly/44WR9Wh

Whenever a conversation emerges about something that genuinely threatens the African literary space, these famously loud Nigerian critics are almost always the first to vanish through the back door

He hasn’t said anything about Baron but look at his brash comment on Buchi x.com/catchoris/stat…

This story by Kasịmma is just marvellous. Woah. craftliterary.com/2025/07/11/ish…

counting individual successes in african literature to represent the whole as a counter to an argument for more structures is, at best, intellectually dishonest. saying “oh but this african writer won the booker” is such a strange pushback. what does that do for the ecosystem?

yes, there have been individual successes especially in the western publishing and prize circuits. but has the collective been better for this? i say no. the collective needs community, and structures and institutions. are we building those? yes and no. mostly no.

again, people always use nigeria and kenya and south africa. tell me about the successes in the other 51 african countries. how is the ecosystem thriving in one city in one country helpful to the wider conversation?

“oh but the bookstores in nairobi” kenya alone has so many towns without a single bookstore. tell me about the bookstores in kisumu (i own one so i know!) or about the bookstores in mombasa or nakuru—all major cities without that same access.

NG critics fight diasporan writers over this. Because they set their works in winter, autumn, with foreign lingos, they scream "IT IS NOT RELATABLE," & stage a moral panic over the authenticity of Nigerian literature. These people will then read Tolstoy & call him the GOAT. 🤣