For this blog I’m doing a lot of research every week and it’s inevitable that I come across interesting websites along the way. They provide me with background information for my reviews and portraits, but they also inspire my marginal notes on literature or give me ideas for future topics. Some of my discoveries are compelling and it would be a pity to withhold them from you. I share individual articles via Edith’s Choice on Facebook and every week I pick a literary website to present here.
This week my focus is on African literature. There were two sites on the internet that particularly attracted my attention and I find it difficult to make a choice between them.
The first is the African Writing Magazine - Many Literatures, One Voice based in Bournemouth, UK, that is available online as well as in a print edition. The relatively new literary magazine (only eleven issues have been published so far) has a very professional and comprehensive look containing interviews, fiction, poetry, essays, memoirs, book briefs and book reviews that refer to the ‘African condition’. Unfortunately, there’s a hitch to this site: to see all contents it’s necessary to buy or subscribe the magazine.
The other literary website is African Writer - Literature and Ideas, an independent offshoot of Nigerians in America, and it has been active since 2003. The site gives emerging as well as established African writers and critics room to publish their short fiction, book excerpts, essays, interviews, reviews, plays and poetry on the internet. Entries are sorted by different categories and can be commented. For those who like discovering new writers and their work online this is a great site although the publicity can be a bit annoying. On the other hand access to the entries is free. Writers can register for free. Of course, I only browsed the site, but there's a great variety of texts and I saw some really interesting features. The site definitely is worth a longer visit. I hope that the community of African writers will continue spreading the word around the globe.
In July the Caine Prize for Best African short stories will be awarded -they publish all of the short listed stories before the award, normally seven or so-Three years ago I was the first person to post on all the stories, in the second year the Caine Prize asked me to do it again, by the third year there was a well organized group of bloggers, some book bloggers and some devoted to aspects of African culture, blogging on the stories-we try to guess who will win and there is a lot of back and forth comments-why not consider joining us this year?
ReplyDeleteSounds great - if it's in July, I might even have the time to join. But having studied law, I find it hard to commit myself to anything at such long term. So we'll see... Anyways, thanks Mel for the comment and the information!
DeleteYou will see on my blog when it starts-it is fun to predict the winner
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to it!
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