Itanile is a literary brand that provides a platform for African writers to publish stories they want to tell about the African experience. We are committed to developing new audiences for African literature. We provide a storytelling platform that connects African writers with their readers
We’ve hosted and led impact-driven creative and literary projects through collaborative effort. Our global community is always growing to reach more and do more.
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By dawn, a few of Tez’ Mu’s assumptions had been proven correct, earning him his escorts’ begrudging respect. Merchants using the Mirin route were now being allowed into the city, though the Keolyor had doubled security. That was an opportunity, one he intended to use.
Poetry, in many instances, resists the desire to be confined to a single definition. Ask a magazine editor, a poet, and a critic what poetry is, and their responses will differ—despite their frequent intimacy with the form. One might argue that a poem is meant to be experienced, not defined. Yet often, the reader encountering a work of poetry seeks both experience and comprehension. They don’t just want to feel the poem; they want to understand it—to walk away satisfied with that experience because they “have a rational understanding of that experience,” as Yvor Winters put it.
Itanile, in partnership with Inkspired NG (founded and led by Jide Badmus), invites poets, writers, and creatives across Africa and the diaspora to take part in a bold literary challenge: Create poetry using Pidgin or local language forms that reflect real life, real culture, and real voice.
It was on one of those nights that I remembered something she used to say whenever I complained about unanswered prayers: “Maybe the body is the first altar God builds. Maybe when you can’t speak, He listens to the ache.”
and I held the ocean within my bone marrow and could leap on the back of an unbridled gust of wind, without tripping out of my own skin. Suppose my prayers did not hiss out of corners of my teeth like calloused hands and fall flat on the earthen ground like a spilled...
The Things That Bury Us By Munachim Amah (Georgia Review) Brought together in holy matrimony by their shared faith, things start to fall apart when the husband, Jonas Odimegwu, stops going to daily mass, opting to join a mysterious group of people who do not believe...
When merry morn did grace my soul's abode, I held within the sun's embrace the bliss, Of naked beams, of grace, of hope bestowed, In beauty's palm, all wrapped in tender kiss. At dawn's sweet call, I rose to greet the day, Like dew upon the humble weed's green blade,...
Do you know how to mend a broken mirror? It is very delicate work. Time-consuming, attention-demanding. You must be prepared for the little pieces that bruise your fingers, for the waves of doubt that urge you to let them go. You must be prepared for the voices in...
The Sprinng Writing Fellowship is a FREE and intensive 6-week online mentorship program for developing Nigerian, Ghanaian, Liberian, and South African writers with great potential and willingness to learn. The fellowship is only open to writers between ages 18 and 25...
Notable Fiction and Nonfiction by African Writers in the First Quarter of 2024 Allah Have Mercy by Mohammed Naseehu Ali (The New Yorker) With a father who is constantly away, a twelve-year-old boy and his cousin find themselves at the mercy of their uncle, Usama, a...
The smile on my brother’s face ran away with his hope & he is searching through the rising sun, wishing to catch them from the scattered rays. Since the day the insurgency started, he became a walking corpse- digging for a sanctuary. I stripped my ears naked to...
The people in your city are inflated by a need to slash and burn, and you are already a dress unraveling at the seams. The wind will take you like a jester starring in a staged farce, toss you hither, thither, smash you against stolid-faced walls and wrinkled roofs,...
