Essential, in-depth stories contextualizing African literature, Nigerian film, and culture. Publisher of @folionigeria. Founder: @otosirieze.
Joined May 2020
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OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
I was surprised when the first reaction to my Profile of Wole Soyinka came not from a Nigerian or African publication but from an Indian one.
It was a pleasant discovery but also a big tell.
@OpenCountryMag has always had readers in India, but that was a tell.
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
The very first Profile I wrote for @OpenCountryMag, on two remarkable women, @anwulipriscilla of @NarrativeLscape & Enajite Efemuaye then of @farafinabooks, who decided to train a generation of editors with @sbmenorg.
Curators keep an industry going.
opencountrymag.com/nigerian-…
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
“@OpenCountryMag’s work carries a symbolic and practical significance. It shows what is possible when African publications commit to longform storytelling: that the continent’s cultural figures can be chronicled with nuance, rigour, and ambition. . .
readcommunique.com/p/open-co…
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
Always love seeing good writers get a bigger platform, finna check Saraba out
In this role, Tolu Daniel (@iamToluDaniel) will help shape Saraba’s (@Sarabamag) nonfiction publishing, working with writers and commissioning work across the breadth of the form – from essays and criticism to memoir, cultural writing and more experimental approaches to nonfiction.
His appointment comes as Saraba Magazine continues to build on its long history of publishing ambitious writing from Africa and its diasporas. Since its founding in 2009, the magazine has been a space for emerging and established writers to experiment, take risks and produce work attentive to both literary craft and the world around us.
As Editor-at-Large, Tolu Daniel will bring his editorial perspective to Saraba’s nonfiction while contributing more broadly to the magazine’s evolving editorial vision.
Read more: opencountrymag.com/tolu-dani…
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
yes, the news is out. i am excited to begin work in my new role with @Sarabamag, we have so many projects in the works already, digging through the treasure troves of our archives & curating new ones. many thanks to the team for the trust!
In this role, Tolu Daniel (@iamToluDaniel) will help shape Saraba’s (@Sarabamag) nonfiction publishing, working with writers and commissioning work across the breadth of the form – from essays and criticism to memoir, cultural writing and more experimental approaches to nonfiction.
His appointment comes as Saraba Magazine continues to build on its long history of publishing ambitious writing from Africa and its diasporas. Since its founding in 2009, the magazine has been a space for emerging and established writers to experiment, take risks and produce work attentive to both literary craft and the world around us.
As Editor-at-Large, Tolu Daniel will bring his editorial perspective to Saraba’s nonfiction while contributing more broadly to the magazine’s evolving editorial vision.
Read more: opencountrymag.com/tolu-dani…
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
My good friends, here’s the official reveal of the Nigerian edition of Many Ways to Die! I can’t wait to share this work with you all!
"Many Ways to Die" is a collection of eight short stories that explores the theme of death and the various ways of dying. Other themes explored in this collection include poverty, religious fanaticism, suicide, human emotions, relationships, and mysteries of life.
In "It Is Finished," Erima clubs her father to death after he succumbs to an abominable lust. Her experience is similar to Ozichi’s in "Fly," whose father gave her out to a man who ran a prostitution agency in exchange for capital to get back on his feet. In "When Flesh Summons," a dead man is summoned back to life to take revenge on his killers. In "Water Takes All of Me," a young boy narrates the tragic tale of how he lost his entire family during a flooding experience. In Paradise, a jobless first-class graduate, desperate for the good life, finds himself caught between partaking in an inhumane act and keeping his values.
In "Magic Child," Nsote loses her baby after breaching the terms of a magical pact. In "This is Not a Way to Die," a young man watches his father die after heeding the words of a pastor and declining a life-saving surgery. In Leaving, a brilliant woman struggles with miscarriages and finds her marriage slipping away from her grip.
Throughout the collection, the idea of death as not just the loss of one’s body, but of their sanity, emotions, aspirations, is observed in the stories.
AUTHOR’S BIO
Famous Chukwuemeka (@famous_dewriter) is a Nigerian writer whose debut novel, "We Will Live Again," was published in 2023 by Griots Lounge Publishing and was listed as one of Top 60 Notable African Books of 2023 by Open Country Mag. He is a 2024 Ebedi Fellow, an alumnus of the 2024 Creative Writing Workshop organized by Nigeria Academy of Letters, a nominee for the 2022 Young Writers and Creatives Award, and was one of 12 authors of the collaborative novel, Poles Apart, published in 2024 in Bulgaria. His works have been published in several anthologies and journals and have been longlisted for the 2020 Quramo Writers Prize and shortlisted for the 2023 Sevhage Prize for Short Fiction. His collection of short stories, "Many Ways to Die," was a finalist in the 2024 Moon City Short Fiction Award, and was first published in the UK by The Roaring Lion Newcastle in 2026. Endorsed by the Arts Council England, he currently lives in England where he is working on his second novel.
RELEASE DATE: January 15, 2027
PRE-ORDER LINK: witsprouts.com/product/many-…
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
@OpenCountryMag’s Iheoma Uzomba wrote an emotional profile. The language, the time that went into this? Grateful, grateful.
opencountrymag.com/what-aded…
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
Worked on this with @nelsoncj3. Can’t wait for you all to read it
Cover Reveal Exclusive:
@elekerepress today unveils the cover of “Mismemories: Contemporary Writing from Queer West African Voices,” a new anthology edited by @nelsoncj3 and Edwin Okolo and forthcoming on 28 November 2026.
It features original artwork by the Sierra Leonean artist @NgadiSmart, who draws on an object familiar from many West African childhoods: decorative figurines kept in family living rooms, treasured by parents and placed beyond the reach of children.
🔥
opencountrymag.com/cover-rev…
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
‘If realist fiction must be done, it must be done in the face of despair. But there is no metaphysical provocation in the imagination of most Nigerian writers … they sleep in our Garden of Gethsemane, while others travail over the rebirth of the world.’
opencountrymag.com/can-conte…
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
When you understand what African literature is up against from home and abroad, your eyes will open.
Our work at @OpenCountryMag is to ensure that, when push comes to shove, nobody will say: “They produced nothing relevant in a global context.”
And push will come to shove.
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
This!
Reminded me of an era of Facebook writers. I recall two from my school back in the day; Osula Daniel and Jindu Enugbe.
They inadvertently encouraged me to pick up my lost and forgotten art of writing. I'd jettisoned the idea of writing for many years until I started reading Jindu and Osula.
I had three other people I admired. They were women - Ese Esiso, she was my classmate and coursemate from the university, Stephanie Orlando and Adaba Mary Rita.
They all co-existed in that era of Facebook writers, and they all inspired me in one way or the other.
Only Jindu I know still writes to this day - he has authored some great works of literature, majorly poetry and short stories - KHAKI IN THE SUN, SEVEN BALLS, and STREET OT.
It was quite an era.
Adedayo Agarau’s (@adedayoagarau) appetite for language began to bolster in a rather strange place: a 2go chatroom. “To be honest, 2go was where we went to talk to babes,” he said. Then he had found himself in a chatroom called Poetry, where a handful of young Nigerians, unironically speaking Victorian English, held nightly salon sessions. He read their chats, marveled by their contortion of language. One evening, he arrived in time to find Rasak Malik and Chisom Okafor, two poets whose lyrical and metaphorical ranges still make him swear under his breath, typing poetic lines into the room.
Through Malik, he gained entry to Words, Rhymes, & Rhythms (WRR), the Facebook literary community hosted by Samson. Agarau revisited their old chats recently. “My grammar was terrible back in 2012,” he told me, amused, “even though I thought I spoke good English.” What mattered was that he reached out to Samson for mentorship and Samson said yes: “I told him, ‘I need you to be my mentor.’ He asked how far I was willing to go. I said, ‘As far as you take me.’” From there, Agarau churned out work alongside other writers like James Ademuyiwa, Gabriel Ayomide Festus, Ridwan Adelaja, Vica Dex, and Adetimilehin. “Every day we showed up. Every day we wrote. And there was no world telling us we were poets. We just were.”
Read more here: opencountrymag.com/what-aded…
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
Two well-deserved news this year from @OpenCountryMag staff and friends:
- @IheomaUzomba, poet, performer, and writer of intelligent Profiles on poets, won the Evaristo Prize (the Brunel Prize)
- Maaza Mengiste, our second cover star, won a MacArthur “Genius” Grant
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
Former @OpenCountryMag Cover Star Maaza Mengiste Awarded 2026 MacArthur “Genius” Grant
Mengiste is now the third African writer and second Ethiopian to receive the grant, after Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Dinaw Mengestu. She gets $800,000.
opencountrymag.com/maaza-men…
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
The Gbagyi are an ethnic minority in Nigeria’s Northern Central region, with scant representation in mainstream arts. With Before the Mango Ripens, a historical novel set during a 1970s Christian tussle, Afabwaje Kurian shares an untold chapter.
opencountrymag.com/afabwaje-…
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
“In Nollywood, an SFX Master Earned His Audience” — Oluwatobi Adebayo for @OpenCountryMag
Good read.
opencountrymag.com/hakeem-ef…
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
Three cover reveal exclusives from @OpenCountryMag :
- @iamToluDaniel Tolu Daniel’s debut essay collection Exodus
- @Penprince_ Oghenechovwe Ekpeki’s debut novel Birth of Orisha
- @elekerepress & @nelsoncj3’s Mismemories: Contemporary Writing from Queer West African Voices
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
Another reason why Joshua Mokwuah’s @OpenCountryMag essay is one of the best I’ve read in this industry — beyond its beauty, clarity, & revelation — is that it asks writers to creatively participate in society, to once again use literature as a weapon.
opencountrymag.com/can-conte…
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
‘Reading Chigozie Obioma, Biafra, and Igbo cosmology, a philosopher reflects on “the shrunken role of Nigerian writers today” and their “inability to perceive the shifting of the tectonic plates.” . . . .
In @OpenCountryMag:
opencountrymag.com/can-conte…
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
Two new Profiles from @OpenCountryMag today:
- of @hakeemeffect, the most decorated makeup artist in Nollywood
- and of @adedayoagarau, poet & curator whose work explores a dark boyhood
They are written by Oluwatobi Adedayo and Iheoma Uzomba, skilled writers who make me proud.
OPEN COUNTRY MAG retweeted
🥳🥳🥳🥳
Cover Reveal Exclusive:
@elekerepress today unveils the cover of “Mismemories: Contemporary Writing from Queer West African Voices,” a new anthology edited by @nelsoncj3 and Edwin Okolo and forthcoming on 28 November 2026.
It features original artwork by the Sierra Leonean artist @NgadiSmart, who draws on an object familiar from many West African childhoods: decorative figurines kept in family living rooms, treasured by parents and placed beyond the reach of children.
🔥
opencountrymag.com/cover-rev…