Nduka Otiono, Associate Professor and Director of the Institute of African Studies at Carleton University, and Darlington Chibueze Anuonye, a PhD student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the United States, have announced Unbound: An Anthology of New Nigerian Poets Under 40, an upcoming generational poetry anthology.

Otiono and Anuonye, in an announcement with publisher Griots Lounge Publishing Canada, said that the anthology will be released in March 2024.

“Griots Lounge Publishing Canada, in association with the editors—Nduka Otiono, an Associate Professor and Director of the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, and Darlington Chibueze Anuonye, a PhD student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Research Assistant at the African Poetry Book Fund—is delighted to announce the acquisition of an outstanding generational poetry anthology, Unbound: An Anthology of New Nigerian Poets Under 40,” the publisher’s statement read in part.

“Featuring The Griffin Poetry Prize and Governor General’s Award-winning Nigerian-Canadian poet, Tolu Oloruntoba; Romeo Oriogun, winner of the 2022 Nigeria Prize for Literature; Saddiq M Dzukogi; Fumi Gaji, Gbenga Adeoba; Logan February; Amarachi Attamah, Ndubuisi Aniemeke, and other noteworthy poets, Unbound: An Anthology of New Nigerian Poets Under 40 is an agenda-setting anthology.

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“The volume provokes intergenerational conversations with its forerunners such as Voices from the Fringes (1988), edited by Harry Garuba; Poets in their Youth (1988), edited Uche Nduka and Ositadinma Ike; Gems Out of Africa: A Wake Anthology of 100 Nigerian Poets (1998), edited by Eddie Ayo-Ojo, Obafemi Obadare and Mac Amarere; and Camouflage: Best of Contemporary Nigerian Writing (2006) edited by Nduka Otiono and Odoh Diego Okenyodo. But importantly, Unbound is the first anthology to periscope the works of the emerging generation of Nigerian poets born in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, most of whom launched their writing careers on social media.

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“The unique anthology will be released in March 2024. Griots Lounge Publishing Canada will first launch this amazing collection in Canada and the United States before it moves to the rest of the world.

“Carefully curated and professionally edited, Unbound: An Anthology of New Nigerian Poets Under 40 is expected to further showcase the enduring power of Nigerian poetry to stakeholders on the global literary scene.”

Pre-orders are currently available via the University of Toronto Press Distribution, the anthology’s distributor.

The anthology will also be available at bookstores in Canada and the United States on release.

Readers can pre-order the anthology through the link provided by the distributors.