Dinka Woman with Baby
At an art exhibition in October, I saw an acrylic painting of what I could only guess was a South Sudanese woman with a baby rising out of…
Our Hearts as Brief as Photos
At sundown one spring afternoon, in New York City’s West Village, we sat on a bench. We held hands and talked about our pasts. I asked… Read More
Facing Fragility
Princess Margaret, the British Queen's younger sister, visited Kenya in 1956. On this occasion, the Kenya Colony commissioned an aluminum sculpture resembling two pairs of elephant tusks. Since… Read More
If I Could See Your Face
As I write now I recall a memory, a memory of being in my late teens and thinking I’d contracted HIV. I couldn’t tell—and I still… Read More
The Writing on the Wall
Something can be said about encounters with strangers in public bathrooms, specifically women bathrooms. There is the horror and discomfort of being with a stranger in… Read More
Best Man
1 Months ago you changed your profile picture on Facebook to the picture of us dancing around in a circle at your wedding. In the photograph, you… Read More
Notes on a Misplaced Photograph
There is, allegedly, a photograph of Flora Nwapa’s daughter beign carried by Emperor Hailie Selassie when he visited Enugu in 1972. Uzoma Nwakuche, Nwapa’s son, speaks about the… Read More
City Boys
1. On my first trip to Dar es Salaam I walked around the city on foot and got sunburned so badly that soon my skin peeled off… Read More
Some Nigerians Behind the Lens (II)
"I had no shoes..." Boys always want new shoes. If the shoes are worn for the first time at a long awaited event, like a wedding, it… Read More
The Image of Life and Death
I met my paternal great-grandfather for the first time in a photograph taken during his funeral. My father, then a teenager, all his siblings, and everyone… Read More
