Video: Chika Unigwe reads a new story

She could not return to Belgium this year, the Nigerian Igbo writer Chika Unigwe, who lived in Flanders for a long time and moved to the US in 2013. But she was very keen to read us the story she wrote for the past Passa Porta Festival. 'A Hand Across Her Back' narrates an important moment in the life of Busonma, an African woman who loses her husband after a COVID-19 infection and continues to seek her place in American society.

Chika is now reading her story to you from her home in Georgia. Below the video you will find the original English text. If you feel like reading more Unigwe after that, then be sure to read her latest book, Better Never Than Late (2020), a collection of stories charting the unconventional lives and love affairs of a group of Nigerian immigrants, making their way in Belgium.