» Yaw Atuobi

Yaw Atuobi

Yaw Atuobi is a writer and researcher currently based in Accra. A co-curator of littoral: an undisciplined project and the former critic-in-residence at the inaugural Black Atlantic Residency (2024) of the Library of Africa and the African Diaspora (LOATAD), their fiction, conversations, criticism, translation (into Akan) and other projects can be found or are forthcoming in A Public Space, PARSE Journal, Jalada Africa, AKO Caine Prize Anthology, and elsewhere. Further work can be found at www.yawatuobi.com.

(Author photo is by Godfred Goodman.)

Of Houses and Homes

I want to cut right through to the word house. It is opaque. It ends at the Indo-European root kus, which is of uncertain meaning but is related to ku and sku, which both mean to cover, to conceal, from which we have skin and hide. I am reminded of the color of my skin, its opacity, and my mind wanders.

March 18, 2026