Pot Pourri by A. Igoni Barrett

There was only one place to find Mrs. Uju (Augustina Lilyrose Patience Odenigbo ‘Mama Uzo’) Orjinta at five o’clock on a Wednesday, and that was plumb in front of her TV set. Come rain or shine, or—as was more likely—power failure or military putsch, Uju Orjinta never missed Pot Pourri. It was her favourite programme, ever. Though unaware of it, this was no small coup for Pot Pourri—Uju Orjinta never gave her loyalties lightly. Pot Pourri was a weekly half-hour live feature on African cuisine, and it was shot on the grounds of the hotel or restaurant whose chef was the guest for that episode. Uju Orjinta loved cooking—but she loved eating even more. Full Story

The Phoenix by A. Igoni Barrett

Due north of the conflux of the great rivers Niger and Benue lies a plateau inhabited by many tribes and village kingdoms. For as far as the eye can travel unimpeded the green plains of this land roll on gently, so level in parts that the storm waters stand nonplussed for a slope to run off. A cluster of hills span the eastern horizon of the fertile tableland, their distant peaks daily lost in morning mists until the sun’s rubicund face emerges from their midst. Giant-sized outcrops of blue-black marble dot the landscape like broken eggshells. A sweet-smelling carpet of succulent-stemmed elephant grass dances slowly in the perpetual breeze of those rarefied heights. Furlongs separate the few trees that rise from the earth, each one shorter than a man and with near-leafless branches so intertwined that snakes dangle from them like macabre festoons, fatally ensnared. Full Story