A unique blend of travelogue, photographs and poetry, A Stranger’s Pose draws the reader into a world of encounters haunted by the absence of home, estrangement from a lover and family tragedies. The author’s recollections and reflections of fragments of his journeys to African cities, from Dakar to Douala, Bamako to Benin, and Khartoum to Casablanca, offer a compelling and very personal meditation on the meaning of home and the generosity of strangers to a lone traveler. Inspired by the author’s own travels with photographers between 2011 and 2015, the Iduma’s own accounts are expanded to include other narratives about ...

There is a statement, “Africa is a country,” used to satirize Western‘ preconceptions about Africa. With billions of people, thousands of ethnicities, several colonial histories and varied post-independence struggles, the continent is spoken of as a single plane that is beset by bad leadership, unending poverty, and the odd scenery. Yes, the continent has these, and yes, there really are some similarities across the different countries and cultures. But, the question remains: Is that all that can be said? And there is another question: How can you represent what truly is Africa? For us at Saraba, we set out to have ...

It‘s a shame and a sham to lose experiments. You could say that this is an experiment, black and white and lines, and a slight shade of blue. But on the larger, more intricate, scale, it is an experiment to see how much success we can make from failure, and how much introspection we can make from goodwill. This job—without pay—has taught us to believe in creation, and to look upon our creation with wonder, awe and intensity. That is, if this is still our creation. You discover that it has become the creation of a larger audience, even French ...

We think that to deal with art we ought to present it, not talk about it. For four months we opened our window to artists producing the finest work in Nigeria, Africa and elsewhere, and the result is what you will see. Seeing is ultimately a trafficking in subtlety, especially if that process of seeing is influenced by art. What, exactly, is art? Since at Saraba we’re open to this kind of questioning that is essentially a voyage, the kind that assembles literary content, art is a process as well as an outcome. Art is the reverberation of colour; art is ...

The way to begin is on a tiny road with no traffic, no nothing, perhaps only a flicker of light at the end of the road. This is the summary of Saraba for this second issue, and one is tempted to end it there. We received fewer entries than the first, and we could not get a Guest Editor. Our box was almost as empty as we left it. That is why there is a very high tendency for us to get despondent, end this all, easily, pocket our losses, and who can say anything? But Saraba deserves more than ...

Will you be able to tell love apart from crime or crime apart from love? Not a cheeky paradox, clearly an essential question in Pemi Aguda’s “Smother.” We are smothering each other. How might we respond? In the diaspora, Arthur Anyaduba argues in “Alimony,” the foreign African, finding a mismatch between cultural stereotypes and Western justice, takes to self-help. But he’s in a dream. Except that it’s not exactly a dream: Moses Kilolo’s “immortal precariat,” wanders into the belly of the night after a fight with his lover. He is shot. He is swallowed by infinity, ill-fated. Can we escape the “faceless puppeteers ...

It was in the hope of mystic possibilities and unimagined realities that this issue of Saraba was published, and again, it is a major triumph. This issue is a victory on many fronts—and fonts: there are more distinguished writers published, and the consequences are brilliantly wrought write-ups. And of course, as always, the Emerging outweigh the Established. Here at Saraba, we stay true to our creed. By giving each of our issue themes, we set out to exhaust these themes, and perhaps proffer new perspectives to our readers, of course after having resonated the obvious. With this “Economy” issue, Saraba is ...

In the first episode of Season 5, Lauren Wetmore speaks with Nigerian art writer Emmanuel Iduma, who reads from “Mileage from Here: Nine Narratives.” Known for his travel and photography writing, and for establishing what he calls “a third, or shared, space between images and text,” the selection Iduma reads from (published in an exceptional presentation of Todd Webb’s previously lost photographic work, Todd Webb in Africa, by Thames & Hudson, 2021) sees Iduma choose a selection of photographs and imaginatively write to, as well as of them. Emmanuel Iduma is the author of A Stranger’s Pose, a travel memoir. His essays and art criticism have been published in The New York ...

In collaboration with Etisalat and the Etisalat Prize for Literature, Saraba Magazine presents a special issue on the 2015 edition of the prize. This issue includes in-depth conversations with the shortlisted and long listed authors—Fiston Mwanza Mujila, Penny Busetto, Rehana Rossouw, Masande Mtshanga, Z. P Dala, Ifeoluwapo Adeniyi, Paula Marais, and Kurt Ellis—conducted by Kenechi Uzor, Emily Achieng, and Tope Salaudeen-Adégòké. Ata Quayson, ‘Yinka Elujoba, Arthur Anyaduba, and Richard Oduor Oduku contributed critical essays on the shortlisted books. Commentaries on the shortlisted books by: Paul Evans (publisher of Tram 83), Jacana Media (on What Will People Say, and The Story of ...

When we remember Saraba’s first outing in February this year, our minds abound with memories of novice, noble beginnings. We are wont to rejuvenate the passion through which the rough gem of our idea materialized into what some have referred to as a ―glorified color book. Ordinarily if we could walk back through the corridors of time, we would leave the “Family Issue” intact. But with every issue, Saraba evolves and now it is with the quaint prospect of a first draft that we regard it. It‘s only logical that we rewrite a first draft. And re-issue it. Guest-edited by Jumoke ...

The task of raising a collage that forays into fashion is arduous and pitiful. Firstly, fashion is a slippery phenomenon, like a jelly hydra, it eludes even the most patient and skilled handlers, which we were not. We often cut to the chase. We exhaust our senses in the pursuit of an ideal perspective for each our issues, but with this issue, it was not business as usual, our modus operandi was put to test. Second is that there is no global approach that seeks to suck in all the fragments of fashion and adapt it for a cosmic show glass. ...

There is a certain way of perpetuating the discourse of food: relishing a meal while predetermining the next. This might be the subliminal rationale behind the “Prequel Issue” to the “Food Issue,” the culinary delight of hors d’oeuvre. This philosophy might as well promote gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins, but Temitayo Olonlua’s piece pointedly asserts this behaviour as popular during the ghastly military era that beleaguered Nigeria a republic ago. And that our “Food Issue” is timely in re-ushering Muslim faithfuls from their stint with abstinence, the milieu is primed to receive Saraba’s muse on food as a ...