FORTUNATE TRAVELLER

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Essay & Review

Essay & Review

World at their Wheels: Two Nigerian Travelogues Fifty Years Apart by Janet Remmington

August 18, 2023

AN AFRICAN ABROAD by Ọlábísí Àjàlá (Author), Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún (Preface), Tom Mboya (Introduction), Joane Ajala (Foreword), Masobe Books and Olongo Africa, 2022 [Originally published by Jarrolds:1963] LONDON TO LAGOS: THE JOURNEY OF A LION HEART by David Kunle Adeyanju (Kindle Edition), 2022 Nigerian travellers have long been going places and crafting their travel stories, with no signs of slowing down.  Recently relaunched is Moshood Ọlábísí Àjàlá’s travel memoir classic An…

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Essay & Review

Where the Spirits Wait: On Kay Ugwuede’s A Substance of Things Unseen by Njoku Nonso

October 7, 2022

Title: A Substance of Things Unseen Author: Kay Ugwuede Publisher: Invisible Borders Trans-African Project Number of pages: 48 Year of publication: 2019 Category: Travel/Nonfiction Kay Ugwuede’s illuminating travel chapbook, A Substance of Things Unseen, begins in the city of Enugu, at the top of a hill. This she translates into the Igbo language as Enu ugwu: a linguistic performance garbed by seemingly measured emphasis. And this presents a sort of manual to the…

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Essay & Review

Africans in Jamaica: A piece of Africa in the Caribbean by Leslie Gordon Goffe

September 24, 2021

Jamaicans have talked about going back, one day, to Africa since the days of Marcus Garvey. But it is Africans, from East, West, and from South Africa, who have come, instead, to Jamaica. There are Ethiopians here, like Yodit Getachew-Hylton, an aeronautical engineer from Addis Ababa, married to a Jamaican government minister. There are South Africans, like the writer Peter Abrahams*, who has lived in the hills above the Jamaican…

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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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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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Essay & Review

Religious Pluralism: A Review of Kemi Falodun’s A Life in Transit by Nureni Ibrahim

May 8, 2020

Title: A Life in Transit Author: Kemi Falodun Publisher: Invisible Borders Trans-African Project Number of pages: 27 Year of publication: 2017 Category: Travel/Nonfiction A Life in Transit by Kemi Falodun is a chapbook of travel essay resulting from the 34-day journey she embarked on across Nigeria in 2016 under the aegis of Invisible Borders ─ an initiative aimed at ‘patching of numerous gaps and misconceptions posed by frontiers within the 54 countries…

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Essay & Review

Made in Communist China: A Review of Solomon Elusoji’s Travelling with Big Brother by Femi Morgan

April 3, 2020

Title: Travelling with Big Brother: A Reporter’s Junket in China Author: Solomon Elusoji Publisher: Question Marker Number of pages: 158 Year of publication: 2019 Category: Travel/Nonfiction A lot of Nigerians encountered China through its movies and low-grade products which enabled them to acquire utilities that would normally cost an arm and a leg. The Orwellian model of China is usually lost on many Nigerians. We are further exposed to China by…

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Essay & Review

‘And The Truth Shall Set You Free’: A Review of Yinka Elujoba’s Collective Truth by Adebayo Adegbite

March 27, 2020

Title: Collective Truth Author: Yinka Elujoba Publisher: Invisible Borders Trans-African Project Number of pages: 36 Year of publication: 2016 Category: Travel/Nonfiction The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. If there were no speaking or writing, there will be no truth about anything. There would only be what is. – Susan Sontag, The Benefactor. In reading Yinka Elujoba’s Collective Truth, it is important to understand where it is…

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Essay & Review

Of Encounters and Connections: A Review of Emmanuel Iduma’s Lives that Enter Mine by Blessing Uche

March 20, 2020

Title: Lives That Enter Mine Author: Emmanuel Iduma Publisher: Invisible Borders Trans-African Project Number of pages: 32 Year of publication: 2016 Category: Travel/Nonfiction In Lives That Enter Mine by Emmanuel Iduma, every encounter is a story that the writer tells in segments and unfolds as if one is leafing through a photo album. This book is an output of the Borders Within 2016 Road Trip by Invisible Borders. Invisible Borders is committed to…

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Essay & Review

Opening Portals to Troubled Histories: A Review of Uche Okonkwo’s What the Road Offers by Matthew Lecznar

March 13, 2020

Title: What the Road Offers Author: Uche Okonkwo Publisher: Invisible Borders Trans-African Project Number of pages: 36 Year of publication: 2016 Category: Travel/Nonfiction ‘That they did not die in vain’ (p.2). This potent adage, so often employed as a way of marking and memorialising the end of wars and conflicts, also embodies ideas of opening and enlivening at the beginning of Uche Okonkwo’s 2016 travel narrative What the Road Offers. Emblazoned upon the…

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