opportunity-for-african-writers

Kenyan novelist Mukoma wa Ngugi teams up with American literature professor Laura Murphy in a one of a kind literary project.

They are co-editing a special issue of the New Orleans Review titled The African Literary Hustle. Their aim is to give African writers a space to share writing considered to be unconventional from the standpoint of a traditional African literary culture.

Here is how the editors describe the project.

When African literature is published in the West, it is too often realist, in English, and always in the spirit of Chinua Achebe. But romance, science fiction, fantasy, epic, experimental poetry, satire, political allegory all find expression in Africa, though not necessarily publication. Those who are called to write often have to hustle to get recognition by writing a coming-of-age colonial encounter tale or hustle even harder to have their unique voices heard.

In a special issue of New Orleans Review guest edited by Mukoma wa Ngugi and Laura Murphy, we will celebrate (and publish) popular and not-so popular writing from Africa. We are looking for literature (in all the above named forms and others we can’t predict) and critical essays that expand the dimensions of African literature, contribute defiant visions, provide new translations, or revise narratives of the tradition or the hustle.

Submissions are welcome from all genres—fiction, non-fiction, poetry, book reviews, and essays.

The deadline is:

December 31, 2016.

If you have questions, send an email to noreview[at]loyno[dot]edu

To send in an entry, click here.

 

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Brittle Paper is not responsible for the organization or further promotion of this call-for-work, neither do we have a stake in its popularity. Address any inquiry to the email included in the post.