4TWINVIEWS

  Award-winning Nigerian novelist, Chika Unigwe, revealed to The PUNCH on Saturday in an interview that her new novel, “Leaving Meshach,” will be published by Dzanc Books in the United States in the fall of 2022. The Enugu-born writer is most notable for her “On Black Sisters’ Street,” a novel published by Jonathan Cape in 2009. The novel foregrounds the tragic lives of four immigrant African women — Sisi, Ama, Efe, and Joyce — helplessly trapped in the net of prostitution in Antwerp, Belgium. With more than ten titles to her name, Unigwe has returned to whet our literary appetite with a new novel, “Leaving Meshach”, which is modelled on Greek mythos, drawing inspiration from the story of the abduction of Persephone (daughter of the Greek god, Zeus) by Hades (Greek god of the underworld). Unigwe, speaking to The PUNCH, said this of her soon-to-be-published novel: “Leaving Meshach is a loose adaptation of the myth of Hades and Persephone. It is set in Enugu (and partly in Atlanta, G...

It is no longer news that Burna Boy, the self-acclaimed African Giant, won a Grammy Award in the Best Global Music Album category a week ago and he has continued to get commendation from several quarters. The 29-year-old singer, who noted that he was relieved when he was announced as the winner, also maintained that he deserved to win the prestigious award. In an interview with  BBC Africa , he said, “I felt very relieved because I deserved it. If I did not get it, I was hoping a situation would not happen where I would not get what I deserved. In 2012, I realised that it was bigger than me and that was when it hit me that this was not a hobby anymore. Anything is possible. Whatever situation or environment one finds oneself does not really determine one’s future or what one is going to do. It also does not stop one from pursuing one’s dreams. At the end of the day, we are in an environment that is very discouraging. An environment that does not even believe in itself; talk more of...