African Writing

African Writing is a new monthly print and online journal, published full colour in newspaper format in the mode of the Africa Review of Books or the New York Review of Books. It promises to be ‘a leading quality, literary paper…committed to reflecting writing and literary work from all the countries, literary generations and official languages of Africa...our Africa-centred but international outlook is evident in the varied perspectives, interests and subjects of the contributors’.

It is produced by a small team of writers, editors and publishers ‘...from our Oxford base we hope to become a magnet, especially, but not exclusively, for African literary talent, wherever it may be found’.

Some 35 contributors make up an impressive line-up from African and diaspora literatures. Brian Chikwava writes the story of Zimbabwe. George Ngwane comments on ‘Cameroonian literature in transition’. Uzor Maxim Uzoatu contributes an essay on Ahmadou Kourouma. New fiction comes from Helon Habila, Ike Okonta and Femi Osofisan.

Remi Raji, the award winning poet and cultural activist pays tribute to Niyi Osundare ‘the most important trailblazer of the sub-tradition of tabloid poetry in Nigerian literary culture’: ‘I celebrate the faith, the commitment of your art, the persistence of your vision’. A rich poetry section includes the work of Tanure Ojaide, Femi Oyebode and Harry Garuba.

The journal includes a useful survey of 50 African writers of the post-1960, Achebe and independence generation: ‘the writers of a disillusioned Africanist enterprise, who are not naïve about international realities but who have become more hesitant about blaming outsiders because they have experienced a lot of enemies within…the writers of the internet age, the age of theory, globalization, exile and its fractured identities’, whose ‘peculiarly alienating experience of recent African history has made them the first generation of African writers to live and write mostly outside Africa’, a statement characteristic of the editorial feel of the journal overall.

The lead essay confidently deals with the shambolic gestures of the British to deal honestly with the historical narrative of slavery: ‘it has to be remembered that trans-Atlantic slavery went on for about four centuries… Together with aspects of the colonial experience that followed, the devastating impact on Africa of slavery cannot be understated – in much the same way, as you cannot successfully seek to diminish the advantages it gave to the slaving nations’.

African Writing strikes an important note then, situating the subject of slavery firmly within British post-colonial African literature and history, where there is still a tendency to think of it as an ‘American’ subject - of little concern, Britain’s role as the largest trader in African slaves notwithstanding… It is opportune moment for such a new publication from a growing confident and articulate younger generation of Africans and peoples of African descent no longer prepared to put up with the crass racism and crude distortions of spun historical narrative in official, academic and media contexts.

A couple of small suggestions to the editors: include longer biographies of the contributors on the contents page: celebrate your writers. Women are also underrepresented, although writing by women is present in a feature article on Femrite, the Ugandan women writers’ collective; Chika Unigwe’s fascinating piece on being elected to a political position in Belgium; and Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie’s recent success in the Orange Prize is covered in a useful literary news section.

African Writing has announced itself as a serious literary news journal, deserving of wide international dissemination. One senses the fighting spirit and sheer bloody mindedness behind its achievement ‘…we hear it say often that Africa can’t be done. We say with African Writing that Africa can be done, and we wish to prove over time that Africa can be done quite brilliantly, successfully.’

– Well, all of us at Pambazuka News can echo that! To all of you at African Writing, we send our warm congratulations. We wish you, the editors and your authors the very best of luck.

Contacts for submissions, subscriptions, review and media enquiries:

publisher (at) african-writing (dot) com
editor (at) african-writing (dot) com
subscribe (at) african-writing (dot) com

ISSN: 1754-6664
Issue 1: August 2007, 40pp
Published by Fonthouse Ltd., Oxford, UK.
Subscriptions: £18/ €30/US$40, individual; £30/ €50/US$40, institutional.