About

About OlongoAfrica

OlongoAfrica is a literary, culture, and arts organisation — a community of creative interventions.

The name Olongo is the Yorùbá word for the orange-cheeked Waxbill (Estrilda Melpoda M) common in West Africa. OlongoAfrica was conceived as a twittering community of opinion, literature, travelogue, journalism, and topical writing. Not quite like Twitter, where the loudest voices rule, but a corner of the world where soft but melodious music makes an impact, nevertheless, above the din.

Founded as an online literary magazine in September 2020, when Nigerian linguist Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún joined eight other writers, editors, and artists to form The Brick House Cooperative, an Ohio LLC, with the aim of revolutionalizing publishing and digital ownership, while creating “an excellent, sustainable independent cooperative and publishing platform, not profits or wealth creation.”

Olongo is also the name of a defunct publication in the late 90s titled Olongo Journal, published by Ìbàdàn Arts Renaissance.

Since 2020, we have published from around Africa, original work in poetry, prose fiction, journalism, translations, essays, visual arts, and photography; we have also published a translation anthology, republished a classic memoir of African travel writing in collaboration with Masobe Books, and lately a documentary film. We also continued to engage with the African literary space through collaborations with the Nigeria Prize for Literature and the Caine Prize. We also began an on-the-ground engagement with the African poetry space through Brown Bamboo and Lagos Poetry Club. Through Olongo Publishing Ltd, a for-profit publishing outfit in Nigeria, and Olongo Publishing LLC registered in the United States, we seek to create new opportunities for telling African stories in print. 

In late 2024, we registered Olongo Africa Trust as a non-profit in Nigeria, through which a number of our educational, artistic, and cultural activities can continue across the continent. Our interests are in the documentation of archives, literary translations (especially into African languages), promotion of literacy, and the continuing engagement with stories that remind us of who we are. 

The important work of the Brick House Cooperative continues, especially through Flaming Hydra, an independent journalism and subscription platform of over 50 writers, where writers from OlongoAfrica and elsewhere continue to express themselves.

Team members:

• Founder/Publisher: Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún 

• Managing Editor: Olajide Salawu

• Contributing editors: Mọlará Wood, Dèjì Tóyè, Precious Arinze 

OAT Board Members: 

• Jide Bello

• Molara Wood

• Yemi Adesanya

• Maria Boustillos

 

Partners and Collaborators

Angels & Muse, Archivi.ng, ART X Lagos, Chambra D’Oc, Google Arts and Culture, Guest Artists Space (G.A.S) Foundation, June Creative Arts Advisory, Lagos International Poetry Festival, Lagos Studies Association, Masobe Books, New York Black and African Literature Festival, Oratures LLC, The Institute of African Studies, University of Ìbàdàn, The Nigeria Prize for Literature, among others.

Grant partners: Open Society Foundations, The Brick House cooperative

Fiscal Agent: Participatory Politics Foundation.

Sister projects: Best Literary Translations, Yorùbá Names Project, Baroka’s Books, Brown Bamboo, Flaming Hydra, KTravula.com, Lagos Poetry Club.

 

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The funding for our first two years of work came from through The Brick House and its various grants. Other funds came from creative collaborations with The Nigeria Prize, and personal commitments and donations. While we continue to pay for every commissioned piece, and we need your support to keep this going. 

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In 2024/2025, with funding support from Open Society Foundations, we are beginning a deep-dive interrogation of The Black Orpheus Journal, its impact on African literature, and the community of creative engagement it started from the late 50s. Throughout the coming year, we will be publishing a result of that engagement through research fellowships, commissioned writings, archival research, and others.