FORTUNATE TRAVELLER

The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end. — Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali, XII.
Non-fiction

Of Tattoos and Mangoes by Kevin Dimetres

December 18, 2020

The dark lines of ink covering her tattooed face couldn’t dissuade eye contact, and for a moment, we both caught each other staring. The woman’s stretched earlobes dangled under the weight of her circular earrings. I almost couldn’t look away. She held a mango in one hand and pointed directly at me with the other, signalling for me to kick the mud off my sandals before climbing up the steps…

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Non-fiction

A Travel Playlist: The Music of My Journey to Dakar by Tọ́pẹ́ Salaudeen-Adégòkè

August 21, 2020

‘The music you travel with helps you to create your own internal weather.’ –Teju Cole; Known and Strange Things I: Confusion Na Quench It all began with an acute anxiety commonly associated with departures – probably it should be entered in a psychiatry textbook as travel anxiety, if it hasn’t been already. I had also exhibited the foolery of drinking a bottle of Pepsi late the previous night. The combination…

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Non-fiction

Going the way of Poetry in Lagos II by Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

August 2, 2020

Now, I am going into Freedom Park through its narrow entrance, with the stage not very far off by my right hand, enlarged photographs of some very famous people like the poets Wole Soyinka and Niyi Osundare, the YPP Presidential candidate Kingsley Moghalu, and a number of people who I do not know, but I’m sure are important people. I find my way around the big compound to the event…

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Poetry

Under Mummy Mountain by Robert Ronnow

July 3, 2020

Aspen, ponderosa pine, blue sprucepink glacier-cut rock, scree, ravensgrey jay, peregrine falcon, hawk. We climb to 11,000 feet in three days, camp at Lawn Lake for three days. Alpine tundra. Elk, bighorn sheep, marmot. Tileston Meadows, ticks in grass, rock face of Mummy Mountain. Binoculars show pink cracks in grey rock. Stoke gas stoves, play cards. Boil water, set up tarps, lay out sleeping bags, hang bear bag. Watch crescent…

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Essay & Review

Traversing the Mood of Landscapes: A Review of Yinka Elujoba’s Images of the Disconsolate by Femi Morgan

June 26, 2020

Title: Images of the Disconsolate Author: Yinka Elujoba Publisher: Invisible Borders Trans-African Project Number of pages: 35 Year of publication: 2017 Category: Travel/Nonfiction Images of the Disconsolate by Yinka Elujoba explores the metaphor of the road as a vortex of memories that can nonetheless be grasped through personal tales. This chapbook of travel narrative must first be understood within the context of the 2017 Invisible Borders TransAfrican project which focused on ‘Borders…

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News & Announcement

Narrating the Elsewhere: An Online Travel Writing Masterclass

May 27, 2020

Fortunate Traveller is a Nigeria-based travel journal that publishes and promotes itinerant narratives. We believe travel can be much more than just being away or on vacation; and we would like to hear more of black flaneurism and stories of travellers of all types. We want to curate an online travel masterclass based on these mission statements to engage seasoned travel writers and a new generation of travel writers, who…

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Essay & Review

Finding Solace: A Review of Amara Nicole Okolo’s Daughters of Salt by Zion Osemwengie

May 15, 2020

Title: Daughters of Salt Author: Amara Nicole Okolo Publisher: Invisible Borders Trans-African Project Number of pages: 36 Year of publication: 2017 Category: Travel/Nonfiction The complexities of everyday people connected together in the same country called Nigeria, and a blend of personal loss, the quest to find one’s true self informs Amara Nicole Okolo’s Daughters of Salt. The chapbook presents a clear semblance of people’s experiences and shows that no matter how remotely…

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