1 min Listen Now
The Roads of Yemoja: The podcast
A character-based documentary series on Cuba’s African spiritual heritage, with a focus on the water deity Yemoja (“Yemaya” in Cuba).
Laeïla Adjovi
Laeïla Adjovi is a Beninese-French reporter, photographer and visual artist based in Dakar, Senegal. In 2020, she became the first recipient of the ArtsEverywhere Fay Chiang Fellowship for Artistic Journalism.
21 min Read Now
Transatlantic Echoes
In this essay from “The Roads of Yemoja,” Laeïla Adjovi examines how a West African deity survived the Middle Passage from Benin and Nigeria to Cuba and became venerated on both sides of the Atlantic.
4 min Read Now
The Roads of Yemoja
Africans sold into slavery were forced to disguise their deities as Catholic saints when they arrived in the New World. Laeïla Adjovi, ArtsEverywhere’s first recipient of the Fay Chiang Fellowship in Artistic Journalism, is retracing the journey of the African deity Yemoja across the Middle Passage to Cuba, where the old rituals still exist in syncretic form.
7 min Read Now
You Can’t Hug Grandma Anymore: Bugs, Borders and Covid in Benin
A journalist offers insight on the COVID-19 response in Africa, while struggling to explain social distancing to her young daughter.