| Editor | Dapo Adeniyi, Akin Adesokan, Michael Veal |
|---|---|
| Frequency | quarterly |
| First issue | 1994-current |
| Company | Private |
| Country | Nigeria |
| Language | English |
| Website | [1] |
The Glendora Review is a magazine that was conceived in an atmosphere of intellectual crisis, following the brain drain from Nigeria, during the Sani Abacha regime. Its founder, Olakunle Tejuoso (whose family owns the Lagos alternative bookstore, after which the journal is named), wanted to create a forum where people could access the work being done by Nigerian intellectuals who had fled the country, and a bridge for artistic theories and activities being propagated by African intellectuals in the West and their contemporaries at home.
The magazine constantly engages and interrogates the idea of Africa, as a contested and dynamic invention, Glendora provided a platform for intellectual discourse on literary, visual and performance cultures that are sensitive to the mutations and complexities of cultural work on Africa in a global age. A strong aesthetic sense coupled with an editorial style that (while rigorous) managed to avoid being too intellectual or esoteric, attracted a wide-ranging readership in Nigeria and abroad.
Although it was initially focused on Nigeria's arts and cultures, Glendora grew into a pan African journal with regular features and interviews of icons, such as Ngugi wa Thiongo, Mbongeni Ngema, Sembene Ousmane, Sun Ra, and other critical texts on African literature. The journal also included a books supplement. The last issue of Glendora appeared in 2004, and its publishers have focused on the publication of books ever since, such as the tome of the West African megapolis, Lagos: A City At Work.
Reviewing the influence of Glendora Today on the younger generation of Nigerian writers, African Literature Today writes: "Indeed there may be said to be a Glendora Group or a Glendora Generation, made up of those who as critics or poets, and guided by Dapo Adeneyi, published in the journal." [1]