AiW Note: As part of our Africa Writes #PastAndPresent weekend, in the absence of the in-person festival in 2020, this Q&A is the first in our cast back over our coverage of Africa Writes over the years, and is republished… Read More ›
Genre fiction
‘Graduating to genre’: Marlon James in person and on the page
“What does it mean when you don’t think you have a mythology?” Marlon James is increasingly preoccupied by legacy. “I return to Greek tragedy before every book I write. I look for answers and Greek tragedy provides them. Or, better… Read More ›
CfP: Special Issue: Postcolonial Text (Abstract Deadline: 16th March)
“Literary Networks and Digital Media in Contemporary African Literatures” Postcolonial Text, Double Guest Issue 13:3 & 13:4, 2018 The aim of this double guest issue of Postcolonial Text is to examine the notion of network(s) in relation to literary production… Read More ›
Longform Q&A: Margie Orford, ‘Queen of South African crime fiction’
Margie Orford – ‘the Queen of South African crime fiction’ – is also an award-winning journalist, photographer, film director, and children’s author. Her internationally acclaimed literary crime fiction novels, featuring her journalist lead Clare Hart who assists the police investigating… Read More ›
Ankara Press – Call for Submissions – 30 August 2015
Ankara Press is a fresh new voice publishing romantic fiction for the African market, and is devoted to publishing easy-to-read, purse-size books with African settings, storylines and characters. Ankara Press launched in December 2014 with six titles, set in locations… Read More ›
4th African Popular Cultures Workshop at the University of Sussex: Alternative Archives
The School of English and the Sussex Africa Centre Postgraduate Committee invite you to the 4th African Popular Cultures Workshop at the University of Sussex Alternative Archives Monday 13th April 2015, 1.30pm – 7.30pm English Social Space (B274), Arts B… Read More ›
Highlights: Year 2, Africa in Words
We’ve had a busy twelve months at AiW, one full of firsts – such as our linked ‘Series’ posts featuring Guest contributors, and the beginnings of our Q&As. The blog has now been running for two years, and we’ve gained new followers… Read More ›
South African authors (and more besides) at the Edinburgh International Book Festival -10-26 August, 2013
The Edinburgh International Book Festival, “the world’s largest public celebration of the written word, right in the heart of Edinburgh”, starts this Saturday, August 10th, and is celebrating its 30th birthday this year (fanfare! trrumpets!). Among the variety of dynamic… Read More ›
Q&A: Novelist, poet and literary scholar Mukoma wa Ngugi
Mukoma wa Ngugi, son of world renowned African writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, is currently in London with his father for a public conversation at the Africa Writes festival, and the launch of his new crime fiction novel Black Star Nairobi…. Read More ›
Genre and the New Geographies of World Literature: A look at Jungle Jim’s “South African Sci-Fi” issue
AiW Guest Stephanie Bosch Santana. The cover of Jungle Jim issue no. 16, the magazine’s “South African Sci-fi” edition, depicts Zulu warriors casting tiny, toothpick-like spears at the Goliath of an alien bearing down on them. Styled after the pulp magazines… Read More ›
‘Without warning, everything became possible’: pulp fiction and the rise of Jungle Jim
AiW Guest Alexander Howard. 1. As the author and editor Jenna Bass points out in the first instalment of her recent interview with Katie Reid of Africa in Words, the bi-monthly fiction magazine Jungle Jim arose out of a shared desire… Read More ›
Jim in the Urban Jungle – South African print culture and Jungle Jim
AiW Guest Ed Charlton. As an intervention into the formal space of South African print culture, Jungle Jim is certainly daring and distinctive. If not an entirely unique mode of literary production, its pulp ’zine format is, nonetheless, a marked… Read More ›
Concept-driven African pulp fiction – extracts from Jungle Jim magazine
Has having heard so much about the African pulp fiction mag Jungle Jim from its co-creator and editor, Jenna Bass (part I of our interview is here), left you wanting, wondering what might be lurking between its distinctive blue and red covers? How the… Read More ›
Q&A: (Pt 2) Jenna Bass – Editor and co-founder of African pulp fiction magazine Jungle Jim.
(Click here for part I.) This, part II of Katie’s interview with Jenna Bass at Jungle Jim, takes us further into the mag, opening up questions of genre – popular, pulp and science-fiction in Africa and South Africa – plus more on the… Read More ›
Q&A: (Pt 1) Jenna Bass – Editor and co-founder of African pulp fiction magazine Jungle Jim.
(Part 2 of this interview is here…) Genre fiction and the rise of African sci-fi; the establishment of literary networks across the continent; the status of independent publishing and bookselling, as well as the significance of DIY ethics and aesthetics in… Read More ›
The Cape Town Book Fair 2012 – new directions in fiction (and some recommended reads)
I was at the Cape Town Book Fair back in June (June 15-17, 2012). I approached a range of publishers and booksellers exhibiting and asked what was ‘new’ for them in South African fiction, and to give me their latest fiction-must-reads –… Read More ›
africainwords.com 