Every year, Litro publishes international editions focusing on different parts of the globe

As 2017 marks Ghana’s sixtieth birthday, we sought to celebrate Ghana by inviting its neighbour Nigeria to join the party, exploring the literary landscape of both countries.

This issue is co-edited by Inua Ellams and features writers such as Ayobami Adebayo, Theresa Lola, Caleb Femi and Irenosen Okojie.

We celebrated the launch of this issue with a special weekend extravaganza, from 25-28 May 207, taking over Waterstone’s Piccadilly and Tottenham Court Road. We held three days of panel talks, spoken word sessions and a free writer’s workshop with ‘Orangeboy’ author Patrice Lawrence.

Every year, Litro publishes international editions focusing on different parts of the globe. As 2017 marks Ghana’s sixtieth birthday, we sought to celebrate Ghana by inviting its neighbour Nigeria to join the party, exploring the literary landscape of both countries.

This issue is co-edited by Inua Ellams and features writers such as Ayobami Adebayo, Theresa Lola, Caleb Femi and Irenosen Okojie.

We celebrated the launch of this issue with a special weekend extravaganza, from 25-28 May 207, taking over Waterstone’s Piccadilly and Tottenham Court Road. We held three days of panel talks, spoken word sessions and a free writer’s workshop with ‘Orangeboy’ author Patrice Lawrence.

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  • yinka shonibare mbe

    yinka shonibare mbe

    Born in London and raised in Nigeria, Shonibare employs a diverse range of media – from sculpture, painting and installation to photography and film – to probe matters of race, class, cultural identity and history.

  • zoe adjonyoh

    zoe adjonyoh

    Adjonyoh is a writer and cook from South-East London. Her pop-up restaurant and supper club has been making waves, bringing traditional and contemporary Ghanaian food the foodie scene in London and Berlin. Zoe appears at streetfood markets, pop-ups and festivals across Europe, provides cookery classes and is an established event caterer.

  • NANA AYEBIA CLARKE MBE

    NANA AYEBIA CLARKE MBE

    Ayebia Clarke is a Ghanaian-born publisher. Submissions Editor of the highly acclaimed Heinemann African and Caribbean Writers series for 12 years, she published and promoted prominent writers and Nobel Prize winning authors. She founded Ayebia Clarke Publishing Ltd with her husband David in 2003 and received an Honorary MBE in 2011 for services to the British publishing industry.

  • ekoh eshun

    ekoh eshun

    Eshun is a Ghanaian-British writer, journalist, and broadcaster. He was the artistic director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London and is now a contributor to BBC2's Friday night arts programme Newsnight Review and the editor-in-chief of the quarterly magazine Tank.

  • Nana Ocran

    Nana Ocran

    Ocran is a London-based writer and lecturer. Her work features topics including architectural design, African pop culture, green spaces and technology, all of which has been a vehicle for commissions and collaborations with national and international organisations including Time Out, Iniva, Pernod-Ricard Paris, Gestalten Books (Berlin) and the British Council.

  • patrice lawrence

    patrice lawrence

    Lawrence was born in Brighton and raised in an Italian-Trinidadian household in Sussex. Her first novel, Orangeboy, has won the Waterstones Book Prize for Older Children, been shortlisted for the Costa Book Award and the YA Book Prize, nominated for the Carnegie Award and shortlisted for the Leeds and North East Book Awards.

  • ato quayson

    ato quayson

    Quayson is University Professor and Director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto. He was educated at the University of Ghana and at Cambridge. His most recent book is Oxford Street, Accra: City Life and the Itineraries of Transnationalism.

  • gabriel gbadamosi

    gabriel gbadamosi

    Gbadamosi is a poet, playwright, and novelist of Irish-Nigerian descent. He grew up in Vauxhall, London and studied English at Cambridge University.

  • Margaret Busby obe

    Margaret Busby obe

    Busby OBE (also titled Nana Akua Ackon) is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster based in the UK. She was Britain’s youngest and first black woman book publisher when in the 1960s she co-founded with Clive Allison the London-based publishing house Allison and Busby.

  • Inua Ellams

    Inua Ellams

    Ellams is a poet, playwright and performer. His first poetry pamphlet, Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales, was followed by his first play, the award-winning ‘14th Tale’. He has created audio and stage plays for institutions such as the BBC, The Royal Court and Metta Theatre.

  • Irenson okojie

    Irenson okojie

    Okojie is a writer and Arts Project Manager. Her debut novel Butterfly Fish won a Betty Trask award and her work has been featured in publications such as The Observer, The Guardian, and the Huffington Post. Her short story collection, Speak Gigantular, was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize and longlisted for the Edgehill Short Story Prize 2017.

  • AYOBAMI ADEBAYO

    AYOBAMI ADEBAYO

    Adebayo holds BA and MA degrees in Literature from Obafemi Awolowo University. She also has an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia where she was awarded an international bursary for creative writing. Her debut novel, Stay with Me, has been shortlisted for the Baileys prize.