“An African City,” the web series about five single women in Accra, Ghana

For the last few weeks social media has been abuzz with comments about a new web series set in Accra called An African City. The series tells the story of the ‘Afropolitan Returnee’ and as one viewer aptly put it: it is “Sex and the City meets Americanah where she [the book’s protagonist] goes back to Lagos.” Though not as finely tuned.

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14 mins read

March 21, 2014

An Afropean Journey

A few years ago, on a snowy January evening, a stranger mistook me for someone he had seen the previous week, aboard an evening train heading to Frankfurt. The moment…..

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11 mins read

January 21, 2014

Why I’m Not An Afropolitan

Last summer, I was invited to take part in a discussion, ‘Fantasy or Reality? Afropolitan Narratives of the 21st Century’, as part of Africa Writes 2013 Festival. I was joined…..

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8 mins read

November 28, 2013

The Afropolitan Must Go

My first thought when reading Taiye Selasi’s 2005 essay ‘Bye-Bye Barbar’ (or ‘What is an Afropolitan?’) was that this is the kind of sludge that would piss off Binyavanga Wainaina. One quick google and lo and behold: “For Wainaina, Afropolitanism has become the marker of crude cultural commodification — a phenomenon increasingly ‘product driven,’ design focused, and ‘potentially funded by the West.’” My second thought when reading Taiye Selasi’s ‘What is an Afropolitan?’, gesturing wildly at my MacBook in my local coffee shop, is that this is the kind of sludge that pisses me off.

1 min read

June 17, 2011

'Afropolitans'

If in London next Friday. Press Statement from the Victoria and Albert Museum: On 24 June the V&A presents Friday Late: Afropolitans, a free evening of music, workshops and performance…..