@IseleMagazine

A literary magazine that publishes notable fiction, poetry, essays, interviews, and book reviews.

iselemagazine.com
Joined July 2020
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Submissions are open for our next quarterly! For this quarterly issue, we want submissions that revolve around the theme of water. Rivers, seas, oceans, rain, drought, reefs, mermaids, pirates…all things water. Send us stories, essays, poetry, & more. iselemagazine.com/2026/10/13…

Call for Submissions: Water

“my dear,we are all made of water.it’s okay to rage. sometimesit’s okay to rest. to recede.”― Sanober Khan, A Thousand Flamingoes“The river is time, and we are alwayswithin it – even wh…

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American Caste | Rita Banerjee iselemagazine.com/2026/03/16…

American Caste | Rita Banerjee

There’s an old saying in India: “If you move across oceans, you lose all caste.” The dictum is meant to be a presage, a warning to those who seek the riches and adventures of outside worlds and onc…

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‘Ebrohimie Road’ Review: Memorials to the Man Who Lives | IfeOluwa Nihinlola iselemagazine.com/2024/07/24…

‘Ebrohimie Road’ Review: Memorials to the Man Who Lives | IfeOluwa Nihinlola

Wọlé Ṣóyínká closes his foreword to Ibàdàn: The Penkelemes Years with a defense of ‘faction,’ his preferred mode of writing stories about his life, which involves a “deliberate dislocation of some …

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The Kindly Ones | Maya Surya Pillay iselemagazine.com/2020/10/22…

The Kindly Ones | Maya Surya Pillay

I like to tell my psychiatrist about my bad dreams. I lay out the details for her: corpses in bed next to me, gouts of blood pouring from my vagina, women hanging by their necks from the rafters. I…

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The Weight of Love | Chika Unigwe iselemagazine.com/2020/07/28…

The Weight of Love | Chika Unigwe

“My mother had never been to London, but it was such a presence in our house that I’d promise her that when I grew up and began to make money, I’d buy us tickets to smell London.”Tweet …

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Matrimony | Adams Adeosun iselemagazine.com/2024/03/15…

Matrimony | Adams Adeosun

Friday evenings, at six, Romola balanced her account at MRS Filling Station and caught a taxi to Riverside Hotel & Bar, where she worked until midnight. She was a pump attendant every day, a wa…

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His Only Current Wife | R. Makama iselemagazine.com/2026/08/30…

His Only Current Wife | R. Makama

Kano, 2015  On a chilly Friday evening, the earth still damp from the season’s first rains, my husband told me he was taking another wife.  Everything inside me dropped. My vision wavered…

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Fall / Between Words | Kharys Laue iselemagazine.com/2022/02/15…

Fall / Between Words | Kharys Laue

I have a very clear memory of daddy outlined by the doorframe with the light behind. And then him throwing you up in the air and you falling. (Ghilraen, sister) I’m almost sure I wasn’t there.…

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Lagos City Girls Never Pay for Pasta | Adaorah Oduah iselemagazine.com/2022/12/23…

Lagos City Girls Never Pay for Pasta | Adaorah Oduah

Food and love in Lagos city. It’s hard not to be hopeful in Lagos. It is a city that leaves repentant love bites as cool evening breezes that caress the same throats it chokes to near-death with sm…

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Short Essay on Music | Adedayo Agarau iselemagazine.com/2022/09/15…

Short Essay on Music | Adedayo Agarau

i.  Writing about desire is like writing about religion. You are sitting inside the storm of music in your dark room, the speakers aching the fervid voice of Zayn Malik’s It’s You, the acute p…

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And Desire Fails | IfeOluwa Nihinlola iselemagazine.com/2025/11/15…

And Desire Fails | IfeOluwa Nihinlola

Before we traveled to the polling stations where we would work as ad hoc officers, before we rode to the local government headquarters with a policeman we had flagged down and then on to the collat…

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Shame | Adéọlá Ládọjà iselemagazine.com/2025/08/30…

Shame | Adéọlá Ládọjà

Kòfowórọlá had only been yelled at today by his mother. He had not really been beaten. It was a weekday, but the schools were on holiday. If they weren’t, he would have had to sweep the entire comp…

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In the Dust | Karen Jennings iselemagazine.com/2024/12/06…

In the Dust | Karen Jennings

A triptych [Bokkeveld, South Africa, 1747] 1 They had been sent out to dig for uintjies. There was only one iron rod, the other missing when she had gone to fetch them from behind the door. She too…

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Some Seasons I Have Known | Kemi Falodun iselemagazine.com/2024/12/06…

Some Seasons I Have Known | Kemi Falodun

OWO The days got colder and drier, lips chapped and dust settled on everything. We cleaned the tables and railings, discarded old, musty clothes. We scrubbed the floor, rearranged the sofas, and ga…

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Young Writers Don’t Need Anyone’s Permission: An Interview with NoViolet Bulawayo iselemagazine.com/2025/11/15…

Young Writers Don’t Need Anyone’s Permission: An Interview with NoViolet Bulawayo

NoViolet Bulawayo’s short story, “Hitting Budapest,” won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2011, and last month it won the Best of Caine award, in celebration of the initiative’s 25th annivers…

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Isele Magazine retweeted
Troy Onyango@TroyOnyangoOct 12
read and support african literary magazines. read @lolwe_ read @sarabamag read @doeklitmag read @iselemagazine read @kalaharireview read @podapodasl read @omenanamag and many others out there doing the work!
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Embedded Threads | Bongiwe Maphosa iselemagazine.com/2025/12/30…

Embedded Threads | Bongiwe Maphosa

Melo has been awake for the past ten minutes staring at the iron roof and ignoring the blaring alarm on her phone. The baby – her baby – sleeps soundly against her chest, small lips twitching with …

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The Things That Stay | Taslym Umar iselemagazine.com/2025/12/30…

The Things That Stay | Taslym Umar

The room is a slow oven. Heat sits in the corners, in the thin cotton of my wrapper, in the little bone hollows behind my knees. I sit on the edge of the bed, and the wrapper clings to my thighs. T…

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Texture | Saddiq Dzukogi iselemagazine.com/2026/03/16…

Texture | Saddiq Dzukogi

I thought I understood the world. But this orb has been spun and spun and my vision of it now is, at best, fickle. What I truly feel of it is doubt; some days, anger; others, scorn. And beauty, whe…

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American Caste | Rita Banerjee iselemagazine.com/2026/03/16…

American Caste | Rita Banerjee

There’s an old saying in India: “If you move across oceans, you lose all caste.” The dictum is meant to be a presage, a warning to those who seek the riches and adventures of outside worlds and onc…

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