Essays · Reviews · Stories · Poems

Writing

Habila’s essays, reviews and stories have appeared in Granta, The Guardian, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal, AGNI, Guernica and Transition, among many others. He has been a contributing editor to the Virginia Quarterly Review since 2004.

Essays & articles

Coming to Lagos Of This Our Country, HarperCollins, 2021
Home and Travelers Powell’s Original Essays, 2019
The Real Berlin: A Traveler’s Journey Beyond the Grim Spy Clichés Wall Street Journal, 2019
The Future of African Literature Journal of the African Literature Association, vol. 13, issue 1, 2019
The Separation Wall Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation, ed. Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, HarperCollins, 2017
A Family Trip Back to Nigeria, Post-Boko Haram The Guardian, 17 October 2015
Giving Shape to One’s Universe Writing a First Novel: Reflections on the Journey, ed. Karen Stevens, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

Reviews

Crude Reality: How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue The New York Review of Books, 21 July 2022
Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir by Akwaeke Emezi The Guardian, 29 July 2021
Inside the Mind of an Islamic Extremist: Khalil by Yasmina Khadra The New York Times, 2 March 2021
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates: a slave’s story The Guardian, January 2020
African Epic: Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James Literary Review, 2019
House of Stone by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma The Guardian, 9 August 2018
Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo: high hopes, big city The Guardian, 18 January 2017
Eat the Heart of the Infidel by Andrew Walker The Guardian, 10 June 2016
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo The Guardian, 20 June 2013

Short stories

Paradise Fictionable
Beautiful adda, Journal of Commonwealth Writing, December 2016
A Man of the People Guernica, December 2012
The Second Death of Martin Lango The Guardian, 7 September 2011
The Hotel Malogo Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 2007. Winner of the Emily Balch Prize; selected for The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2008
My Uncle Ezekiel Virginia Quarterly Review, Summer 2004
Love Poems Winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, 2001

Poems

Three Seasons: Poems for Edna Fathers & Daughters: An Anthology of Exploration, ed. Ato Quayson, Ayebia Clarke, 2008
The Day of the Dead The Cúirt Annual, Galway, 2005
After the Obsession; Birds in the Graveyard 25 New Nigerian Poets, ed. Toyin Adewale, Ishmael Reed Publishing, 2000

Lectures & talks

Hayes Writers Series Lecture, College of William & Mary, 2024
On the Environmental Novel Panel, AWP Conference, Philadelphia, April 2022
Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor International Writing Program, University of Iowa, November 2021
The Environment of African Literature Keynote, Africa@2050: Imagining Climate Future, University of St Andrews, June 2021
Searching for Home: Africans in Europe Betty Jean Craig Lecture, University of Georgia, March 2021
Art and Activism Clarence De Graaf Lecture, Hope College, November 2018
Religion and Politics in Contemporary Nigerian Literature Speakers Series, Saint Anselm College, New Hampshire, October 2018
Travel and Identity SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, September 2018
The Future of African Literature Keynote, African Literature Association Conference, Washington DC, 2018
Reflections on the African Novel Centre for Interdisciplinary African Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt, January 2013
Literature as a Way of Seeing Keynote, Writers Unlimited Festival, The Hague, 2012