Why we opened a bookshop

There is no shortage of Nigerian writing. There is a shortage of places in Canada that carry it, and that is a different problem with a much simpler solution.

For years the way I got books was to ask someone travelling to bring them, or to pay more in shipping than the book cost. Meanwhile the same handful of titles turned up on every shelf here — always the same ones, always filed under a heading that did most of the thinking for you.

So this is a shop with a narrow remit. Nigerian literature, chosen one book at a time, shipped from St. Catharines to anywhere in Canada and the United States. Some of it is famous. Some was printed in Lagos and has never been stocked on this continent. The point is that you get to choose.