Clik here to view.
The Sun, the Moon, and a cardboard box
The sun and the moon and me (c) CM So today there was a partial eclipse. I hadn’t heard about it until I went to lunch with a friend, and in her car, she had armed herself with a box with a piece of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Translating (and Transcribing) the Hausa film song Zazzabi [Fever]
I’m going to do something today that I haven’t done for a long time on this blog, but which is something I originally started this blog to do, and that is to put up some work in progress–a song that I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Award-winning documentary Daughters of the Niger Delta screens at upcoming...
Publicity photo courtesy of MIND A few months ago, I got an email from the NGO MIND (Media Information Narrative Development) associated with the NGO Cordaid asking me if I would be willing to review a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kannywood Award 2013
[UPDATE 24 November 2013: SCROLL DOWN FOR THE WINNERS OF THE 2013 KANNYWOOD AWARD] I recently received an invitation to the Kannywood Award 2013, which begins at 8pm tomorrow, 23 November 2013 in Kano....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Africa Ukoh’s brilliant play 54 Silhouettes Takes on Hollywood in Jos and...
publicity poster used by permission of Africa Ukoh Africa Ukoh’s brilliant play 54 Silhouettes is ongoing right now in Abuja at the French Institut in Wuse II, off Aminu Kano Crescent (Beside Mr....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Transitions: Life changes and this blog’s 2013 in review
Happy New Year 2014 A lot has changed in my life since my last post, over a month ago. When I posted, I had just had a great writing day. I was about to submit a chapter. I was “raring to go” on the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Polar Vortex welcomes America into the Arctic Circle
Guess what this image is. What is this? I arrived in America just in time to enjoy the coldest winter in almost half a century in some places (Reuters says Atlanta is having the coldest weather it has...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Writing Companions
“La Danse” (second version, 1909-1910) by Henri Matisse, Photo Credit: Wikipedia When I was a teenager and I still had an already old fashioned record player, one of my favourite albums from my parents...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Introducing Dr. Carmen McCain
Dr. Carmen McCain (c) my brilliant brother Dan McCain I have not posted on this blog since January. I think that is the longest I have ever neglected it. But it was for a good cause. It enabled me to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Remembering ‘Dan Ibro (tare da baturiyarsa) (Allah ya jikan ‘Dan Ibro)
This morning, I yielded to the temptation to go onto Facebook before starting my work. I found waiting for me a private message from a friend telling me that Rabilu Musa aka ‘Dan Ibro, the most famous...
View ArticleClik here to view.
My memories of Dan Ibro in Weekly Trust today
I remember in the middle of the 2008 Jos crisis laughing alongside an audience of Christian refugees at Ibro Dan Siyasa Last week I wrote up some of my memories of one of Kannywood’s biggest stars...
View ArticleClik here to view.
#Politicalironies : Campaigning in a time of Boko Haram
I’m not sure this photo needs any captioning. A screenshot I took featuring an article and a sidebar ad on 16 January 2015. A lot of juxtapositions these days. Here is a link to my blogpost with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Interview with Award-winning filmmaker Kenneth Gyang at the African Studies...
poster courtesy of Shadow and Act At the African Studies Association conference in Indianapolis last November (2014), Nollywood scholar Connor Ryan asked me if I’d like to collaborate with him on an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On the eve of the election: Podcast with Ade Torrent on blogging from Nigeria
PDP poster shoved through bus windows, 25 March 2014. (c) Carmen McCain Two days ago, while returning in a university bus from the institution in one of the western states of Nigeria where I teach, we...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Missing Kannywood
During the celebration of Kannywood at 20, Kano, December 2010 (c) Sani Maikatanga There are many posts I have wanted to write, but I put them off because there is always something else I am supposed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Global Reach?
Several times I have proposed keeping up with the blog by posting photos from my vast archive and writing a quick memory of the context behind the photograph, and today I intend to start that–begin the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wa Zai Auri Jahila? Balaraba Ramat Yakubu’s novel on Child Marriage
The novel was published in two parts. This is the second part, of 164 pages. In 2013, Abuja-based Cassava Republic Press asked me to choose a September 2013 “Book of the Month.” I wrote about Balaraba...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Remembering September 11 through a lens of fourteen years
Even all these years later, seeing the date September 11 still gives me a small jolt. Last night I was up past midnight trying to put up a course syllabus online. When I glanced at the date in the top...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lola Shoneyin polygamist satire in The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives
Once I started the 245-page Secret Lives…, I couldn’t put it down. The novel is stunning—one of the best novels I’ve read this year. Continue reading →
View ArticleClik here to view.
Translation Conference in Kano and Glenna Gordon’s exhibition of photographs...
Glenna Gordon's photography exhibition on Hausa women writers opens at the Open Society in New York this evening. I begin with a discussion of a translation conference in Kano I attended and then write...
View Article