DESCRIPTION
Glendora Review was conceived in an atmosphere of intellectual crisis following the brain drain from Nigeria during the Abacha regime. Its founder, Olakunle Tejuoso, whose family owns the Lagos alternative bookstore after which the journal is named, wanted to create a forum where people could access the work being done by Nigerian intellectuals who had fled the country, and a bridge for artistic theories and activities being propagated by African intellectuals in the West and their contemporaries at home.
Constantly engaging and interrogating the idea of Africa as a contested and dynamic invention, Glendora provided a platform for intellectual discourse on literary, visual, and performance cultures that is sensitive to the mutations and complexities of cultural work on Africa in a global age. A strong aesthetic sense coupled with an editorial style that, while rigorous, managed to avoid being too intellectual or esoteric, attracted a wide-ranging readership in Nigerian and abroad.
Although initially focused on Nigeria's arts and cultures, Glendora grew into a pan African journal with regular features and interviews of icons such as Ngugi wa Thiongo, Mbongeni Ngema, Sembene Ousmane or Sun Ra, and critical texts on African literature. The journal also included a books supplement.
The last issue of Glendora appeared in 2004 and its publishers have focused since on the publication of books, namely the excellent tome of the West African megapolis, Lagos: A City At Work.
PEOPLE
Dapo Adeniyi, Akin Adesokan, Michael Veal, Okwui Enwezor, Sola Olorunyomi, Greg Tate, Sefi Ransome-Kuti (Sefi Atta), John Collins, Ololade Bamidele, Chika Okeke, Odia Ofeimun, David Aradeon, Giarokwu Lemi, Dele Jegede, Depth of Field Collective
FAMILY TREE
- Black Orpheus (1957)
- Transition (1963)
- New Culture (1978)
- Kurio Africana (1989)
- The Eye (1992)
- Uso (1995)
- Agufon (1997)
- Position (2001)
- Farafina
