(adapting a purported excerpt titled “Tips to look after your husband” from a 1950s Home Economics Schoolbook. Edited and updated for the 2000s) After a rough day at the sandbox, every kindergartener needs a haven where they can renew themselves in body and spirit. 1. Have snacks ready “Plan ahead, even…

Gloss: “Mzungu” = “European/Caucasian” “Mweusi” = “African/Negro” We might wonder whether universality is more rightfully the province of one literary Spirit and not another, one poetic Sensibility and not another, one authorial Voice and not another. I believe that Wambui Mwangi’s questions about Alexander Opicho’s article, “White African Writers Can…

The first spiritual awakening I can remember experiencing occurred when I was eleven years old. It happened on Easter Sunday, somewhere in the course of the school term, some time after the morning’s worship service. It was a boarding school and I was on the second floor corridor of my…

Does the way we use words really matter? How often — while reading a written text (news, or analysis, or even fiction), or while listening to somebody speak (in conversation, on tv, on the radio), or maybe even talking yourself, telling stories, sharing thoughts, or trying to teach something new…

The following post discusses details from “The Queen’s Gambit” on Netflix and contains spoilers throughout. Everyone around me was raving about “The Queen’s Gambit,” the Netflix series that, according to summaries, tells the story of a chess prodigy, Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy), struggling with addiction. I confess that I am…