While I worked as a high school teacher in Lagos between 2012 and 2015, I edited two volumes of student-written anthology of creative works called The Sail in 2015 and 2016. A third edition was published in 2017.
In 2015, I was the editor of Aké Review, the literary publication of the Aké Arts and Book Festival, along with Kolade Arógundádé.
In September 2015, my second chapbook of poetry, Attempted Speech & Other Fatherhood Poems was published by Saraba Magazine in September, 2015. My first chapbook Headfirst into the Meddle had been published in 2015 by Khalam Collectives in Ìbàdàn, Nigeria.
In 2017, my essay House Number 54 was a joint winner of the Saraba Magazine Manuscript Contest in 2017. In 2018, I won the 2018 Miles Morland Scholarship, a fellowship designed to support the writing of a nonfiction book.
In 2018, my first full collection of poetry Edwardsville by Heart was published by Wisdom’s Bottom Press in Oxford, UK. Howard Rambsy II, Professor of English, Southern Illinois University, called it “an artistic map disguised as a volume of poetry.”
I have often advocated for the internet as a veritable platform for literature. Many of my writings and interventions can be found on the internet in essays, tweets, literary interviews, and other writings. In a 2013 interview, I suggested “taking the book out of book prizes” — a nod to the internet, a veritable platform for the production and consumption of literature.
From 2009 to date, I wrote extensive travel nonfiction and journalism at KTravula.com, covering some of my travel to about five continents. In 2015, the blog was nominated for the CNN African Journalists Awards, for a travel piece on Abẹ́òkuta It was the first time a blog was nominated for the award. I count this, along with the subsequent selection of Bob Dylan in 2016 for the Nobel Prize in Literature, as an indirect nod in the direction of the web as an important literary platform.
I have also done some investigative reporting on issues of culture.
Between 2012 and 2015, I edited the NTLitmag which published new and established writers in Nigeria and in Africa, from Rótìmí Babátúndé to Tẹ́ju Cole. In early 2020, the digitized version of all the 29 editions of the magazine was published online. Read them here.
I have written mostly in English, but also in Yorùbá. I have translated poetry and prose from Yorùbá to English but I have recently started work in translating contemporary literature from English into Yorùbá, moved by the strong belief that there has not been enough work of African writers translated back into local languages as there have been in the other direction. It is my conviction that this action is necessary to revitalize our languages, build new audiences for contemporary African literature in English (and other European languages) and enrich our imagination.
I continue to do a lot more work in this direction. My translation of Chimamanda Adichie’s The Shivering as Ìgbọ̀nrìrì was published by Michigan University in the Fall 2019 Issue. My translation of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s short story Ituĩka Rĩa Mũrũngarũ: Kana Kĩrĩa Gĩtũmaga Andũ Mathiĩ Marũngiĩ (“The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright”) originally written in Gikuyu, was published by Jalada in March of 2016.
From October 2019, I began a collaboration with the Poetry Translation Centre of London in facilitating a translation workshop for some classical Yorùbá language poetry into English.
I regularly feature at the annual Aké Arts and Book Festival (2013 to date), and an occasional participant at the Kaduna Book and Arts Festival, I have helped facilitate interviews and public conversations with some contemporary writers and artists like Leila Aboulela, Okey Ndibe, Moghale Mashigho, Bassey Ikpi, Nnedi Okorafor, Alan Mabanckou, Bernardine Evaristo, Victor Ehikhamenor, Pius Adésanmí, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Níyì Ọ̀ṣúndáre, among others. Some of these interviews can be found online or in print, while others can be found on YouTube.
Here’s the latest conversation between Nicole Dennis-Benn (Patsy) and Bernardine Evaristo (Girl, Woman, Other).
Here’s an interview with Ngugi wa Thiong’o for Google Arts and Culture (2019). My involvement with the Google Arts and Culture (GAC) from 2019 to date has yielded a lot of collaboration with Nigerian and other African writers and writing communities with many of GAC’s art exhibits around the continent. See Come Chop Belleful: A Taste of Nigeria (July, 2019) and Utamaduni Wetu: Meet the People of Kenya (November, 2019).
In July 2016, I was honoured to have become the first African recipient of the Premio Ostana’s Special Prize for Mother Tongue Literature [Ostana Premio Scritture in Lingua Madre], a prize by Chambra D’Oc in Cuneo Italy for work done (in literature and other ways) to support indigenous language advocacy.
In July 2019, I was made a Member of the Aké Arts and Book Festival Advisory Board.
I am currently a Chevening (2019/2020) Research Fellow at the British Library, working on the African language print collections from the 19th Century. More here.