While earlier writers used themes of culture and tradition, the more contemporary Nigerian literature has expanded impressively and now draws from the realities of the country’s social processes, from women’s rights and feminism to post-war and post-colonial identity.

I went to my Grandma Mamie’s every summer, sometimes even during the year, but this was the first time Roosevelt had visited me.

A woman leaned her back on a broken wall/ her face a deep secret in her hijab

The connection between my identity as a Black woman and my relationship with my hair goes deep. It means acknowledging the history of my hair and why perms and wigs even exist as hair styling options.

That was the first time she learned that she had to set herself on fire to make other people happy.

Bottles of beer to their mouths, they all anxiously wait for him to at least say something, acknowledging that it is best to let a man crawl out of his shell on his own.

The burden of loving this baby weighed him down like the chains that had shackled his forebears. And hers.

I’ve watched mothers  / Break into rivers / Before their children’s / Sprawled bodies.

It was too late. We had tasted sin and seen that the repercussions were unclear and improbable.