"Bones That Remember: Re-reading the ruins of Empire".

Join us as we host Dr. Bunmi Oyinsan at the CAMRI Africa Media Series to discuss her new novel, A Ladder of Bones (2025). The book explores five pivotal characters from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Jamaica, and the USA, as well as Halifax, Canada, illuminating the realities of Black Atlantic characters confronting civil war, police brutality, migration, and survival. Oyinsan’s novel distorts Ellen Thorp’s work with a similar title, Ladder of Bones (1956), which presents a savage image of pre-independence Nigeria and depicts the colonial master as the ‘saviour’. Just as we continue to critique media decoloniality, African literature extends the discourse on the ruins of Empire.