 | |
 Open Country Mag's September 2021 cover featuring writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | |
| Editor-in-chief | Otosirieze Obi-Young |
|---|---|
| Categories | Literature and Film |
| Frequency | online weekly |
| First issue | 2020 |
| Country | Nigeria |
| Based in | Lagos |
| Language | English |
| Website | opencountrymag |
Open Country Mag is a Nigerian magazine that covers African literature, the Nigerian film industry and culture. It was founded in 2020 by Nigerian writer Otosirieze Obi-Young, who is also its editor. [1]
Open Country Mag publishes culture journalism, commentary, book and film reviews, new writing and book excerpts.[ citation needed ]
The magazine is known for its longform profiles. [2] These include cover story features on writers Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Teju Cole, Damon Galgut, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Maaza Mengiste and Chinelo Okparanta, and Nollywood actor Rita Dominic. [3]
Contributors include Dangarembga, Leila Aboulela, Diriye Osman, Chibundu Onuzo, and Jamal Mahjoub.[ citation needed ]
In March 2023, Open Country Mag announced that it was now the publisher of Folio Nigeria, [4] a content platform that was the exclusive media affiliate of CNN in Africa. [5]
University of Maryland's Department of African and African American Studies has described it as "one of the most important and ambitious platforms for African writers." [6]
Anambra State is a Nigerian state, located in the southeastern region of the country. The state was created on 27 August 1991. Anambra state is bounded by Delta State to the west, Imo State to the south, Enugu State to the east and Kogi State to the north.
Tsitsi Dangarembga is a Zimbabwean novelist, playwright and filmmaker. Her debut novel, Nervous Conditions (1988), which was the first to be published in English by a Black woman from Zimbabwe, was named by the BBC in 2018 as one of the top 100 books that have shaped the world. She has won other literary honours, including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the PEN Pinter Prize. In 2020, her novel This Mournable Body was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2022, Dangarembga was convicted in a Zimbabwe court of inciting public violence, by displaying, on a public road, a placard asking for reform.
The Caine Prize for African Writing is an annual literary award for the best original short story by an African writer, whether in Africa or elsewhere, published in the English language. Founded in the United Kingdom in 2000, the £10,000 prize was named in memory of businessman and philanthropist Sir Michael Harris Caine, former Chairman of Booker Group plc and of the Booker Prize management committee. Because of this connection with the Booker Prize, the Caine Prize is sometimes called the "African Booker". The prize is known as the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. The Chair of the Board is Ellah Wakatama, appointed in 2019.
Teju Cole is a Nigerian-American writer, photographer, and art historian. He is the author of a novella Every Day Is for the Thief (2007), a novel Open City (2011), an essay collection Known and Strange Things (2016), and a photobook Punto d'Ombra. Critics have praised his work as having "opened a new path in African literature."
irokotv is a web platform that provides paid-for Nigerian films on-demand. It is one of Africa's first mainstream online movie streaming websites, providing access to over 5,000 Nollywood film titles. irokotv is a part of iROKO Limited, which is one of Africa's entertainment companies.
Okechukwu Ukeje, known as OC Ukeje is Nigerian actor,model and musician. He came into prominence after winning the Amstel Malta Box Office (AMBO) reality show. He has received several awards including Africa Movie Academy Awards, Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards, Nollywood Movies Awards, Best of Nollywood Awards, Nigeria Entertainment Awards and Golden Icons Academy Movie Awards. He has featured in several award-winning films including Two Brides and a Baby, Hoodrush, Alan Poza, Confusion Na Wa and Half of a Yellow Sun.
The 9mobile Prize for Literature was created by Etisalat Nigeria in 2013, and is the first ever pan-African prize celebrating first-time African writers of published fiction books. Awarded annually, the prize aims to serve as a platform for the discovery of new creative talent out of the continent and invariably promote the burgeoning publishing industry in Africa. The winner receives a cash prize of £15,000 in addition to a fellowship at the University of East Anglia.
Bakwa is an online magazine of literary and cultural criticism based in Yaoundé, Cameroon, that covers international cultural issues and has a penchant for fiction and creative non-fiction by Cameroonian writers. Notable contributors include: Imbolo Mbue, Kangsen Feka Wakai, Jeremy Klemin, Serubiri Moses, Minna Salami, Jack Little, Emmanuel Iduma, Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire and Johnnie MacViban. Bakwa has been described as "an eclectic, intelligent take on the dynamic cultural scenes often missed by mainstream, western media".
Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún is a Nigerian linguist, writer, translator, scholar, and cultural activist. His work and influence span the fields of education, language technology, literature, journalism, and linguistics. He is the recipient of the 2016 Premio Ostana "Special Prize" for Writings in the Mother Tongue. for his work in language advocacy. He writes in Yoruba and English.
The Aké Arts and Book Festival is a literary and artistic event held annually in Nigeria. It was founded in 2013 by Lola Shoneyin, a Nigerian writer and poet, in Abeokuta. It features new and established writers from across the world, and its primary focus has been to promote, develop, and celebrate the creativity of African writers, poets, and artists. The Aké Arts and Book Festival has been described as the African continent's biggest annual gathering of literary writers, editors, critics, and readers. The festival has an official website and a dedicated magazine, known as the Aké Review.
Brittle Paper is an online literary magazine styled as an "African literary blog" published weekly in the English language. Its focus is on "build(ing) a vibrant African literary scene." It was founded by Ainehi Edoro. Since its founding in 2010, Brittle Paper has published fiction, poetry, essays, creative nonfiction and photography from both established and upcoming African writers and artists in the continent and around the world. A member of The Guardian Books Network, it has been described as "the village square of African literature", as "Africa's leading literary journal", and as "one of Africa's most on the ball and talked-about literary publications". In 2014, the magazine was named a Go-To Book Blog by Publishers Weekly, who describe it as "an essential source of news about new work by writers of color outside of the United States."
Dolapo Adeleke(listen), also known as LowlaDee is a multiple award winning filmmaker from Nigeria.
Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ is a Nigerian writer. Her 2017 debut novel, Stay With Me, won the 9mobile Prize for Literature and the Prix Les Afriques. She was awarded The Future Awards Africa Prize for Arts and Culture in 2017.
Emmanuel Iduma is a Nigerian writer and art critic. He is the author of A Stranger's Pose (2018) and Farad (2012). In 2016, Farad was republished in North America as The Sound of Things to Come. He was awarded the inaugural Irving Sandler Award for New Voices in Art Criticism by the Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art, USA. He teaches in the MFA Art Writing Program at the School of Visual Arts, New York City.
Ainehi Edoro is a Nigerian writer, critic and academic. She is the founder and publisher of the African literary blog Brittle Paper. She is currently an assistant professor of Global Black Literatures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her areas of research include 21st-century fiction, literature in digital/social media, The Global Anglophone Novel, African Literature, Contemporary British Fiction, Novel Theory, Political Philosophy, and Digital Humanities.
Otosirieze Obi-Young is a Nigerian writer, editor, culture journalist and curator. He is editor of Open Country Mag, an African literary and film magazine. He was editor of Folio Nigeria, a then CNN affiliate. In 2019, he won the inaugural The Future Awards Africa Prize for Literature. He has been described as among the "top curators and editors from Africa."
The Writivism Short Story Prize and Koffi Addo Prize for Creative Nonfiction are a pair of annual literary awards for work by emerging writers living in Africa. The Writivism Short Story Prize, for short fiction, was established in 2013. The Koffi Addo Prize for Creative Nonfiction was established in 2016.
Travelers is a 2019 novel by Nigerian author Helon Habila. It was published by W. W. Norton & Company. The story revolves around the life of a Nigerian expatriate who travels around Europe to know more about African refugees.
OkadaBooks is a self-publishing and bookselling platform based in Nigeria, founded by Okechukwu Ofili in 2013. It was selected by Google's "Google for Start-up Accelerator" in 2017. In 2018, it hosted a writing competition in partnership with Guaranty Trust Bank called "Dusty Manuscript".