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Africa39
Africa39: New Writing from Africa South of the Sahara | Ellah Wakatama Allfrey
8 posts | 2 read | 9 to read
Africa has produced some of the best writing of the twentieth century from Chinua Achebe, Ayi Kwei Armah, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and the Nobel Laureates Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzee and Doris Lessing, to more recent talents like Nuruddin Farah, Ben Okri, Aminatta Forna and Brian Chikwava. Who will be the next generation? Following the successful launch of Bogot39, which identified many of the most interesting upcoming Latin American talents, including Daniel Alarcon, Junot Diaz (Pulitzer Prize), Santiago Roncagliolo (Independent Foreign Fiction Prize) and Juan Gabriel Vsquez (short-listed for the IFFP), and Beirut39 which published Randa Jarrar, Rabee Jaber, Joumana Haddad, Abdellah Taia and Samar Yazbek, Africa39 will bring to worldwide attention the best work from Africa and its diaspora. The judges will select from up to 200 submissions researched by Binyavanga Wainaina, the founding editor of the acclaimed Nairobi-based literary magazine Kwani?, and the writers' names will be unveiled in Port Harcourt and at the London Book Fair in April 2014. Africa39 will be published in English throughout the world by Bloomsbury. Africa39 is a Hay Festival and Rainbow Book Club project which aims to select and celebrate 39 of the best young African writers from south of the Sahara. It will be launched at the PH Book Festival in UNESCO's World Book Capital, Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in October 2014. The three judges are: Margaret Busby (UK ? publisher, broadcaster and reviewer, chair of the Commonwealth Prize and editor of the anthology Daughters of Africa) Elechi Amadi (Nigeria ? author of plays, memoir and novels, including The Slave, Estrangement and The Woman of Calabar) Osonye Tess Onwueme (Nigeria/USA ? playwright, poet and scholar, whose works include Riot in Heaven and What Mama Said)
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Hooked_on_books
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Pickpick

This is a collection of short fiction by African and a few diasporic African writers from many different countries, including #EquatorialGuinea. I enjoyed reading it and being exposed to mostly new to me writers.

#ReadingAfrica2022

Librarybelle Sounds like a great collection! 2y
44 likes1 stack add2 comments
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Andrew65
Africa39 | Wole Soyinka
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We are delighted to announce #ReadingAfrica2022! Join @Librarybelle & @BarbaraBB on a year long challenge to read books set in each African country or by an African author. Track your reading by signing up for the challenge using the link below. Post thru the year with #ReadingAfrica2022 and tag us! Tagged are people who have been involved or interested in #ReadingAsia2021 but the challenge is open to anyone!

https://forms.gle/tKdCCsxttXxcex6p9

Librarybelle Thanks for reposting, Andrew! 3y
BarbaraBB Thanks so much Andrew! Hopefully you‘ll join too 🤍 3y
Kenyazero This sounds like an awesome challenge! 3y
Andrew65 @Kenyazero It will be, @BarbaraBB and @Librarybelle do a great job of it. 3y
Andrew65 @Librarybelle @BarbaraBB Anytime 😍, and yes will be joining. With a few potential life changes next year I hope to have more time to read. (edited) 3y
57 likes5 comments
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Hooked_on_books
Africa39 | Wole Soyinka
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My husband is just wrapping up putting down new laminate in my office (also my nonfiction room), so I took the opportunity of having to move all my NF books to do some organizing. I‘ve pulled all my Africa-associated books, both fiction and non, and put them here on my closet shelves to start prepping for #ReadingAfrica2022!

mandarchy I'm inspired. I need a nonfiction room now. Such a cool idea! 3y
Hooked_on_books @mandarchy I had books in so many places before I moved, and after the move it was clear that they would be in 2 rooms primarily, so the idea was born and I love it! I do bring in some NF to “feature” as outracing books on my fiction shelves, so I can remember what I have! 🙄😂 3y
Librarybelle So awesome! @BarbaraBB and I will be officially announcing #ReadingAfrica2022 very soon!! 3y
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Hooked_on_books @Librarybelle Very exciting! I‘ll be watching for the announcement! 🥳 3y
LeahBergen I love organizing my books. 😄 3y
BarbaraBB You‘ve got so many already! I‘m taking a screenshot! 3y
Hooked_on_books @LeahBergen I was highly organized with my books as a kid, but lately it‘s been wherever they fit. When I reshelved the NF room, I organized it by genre and it was really satisfying! 🤓 3y
Hooked_on_books @BarbaraBB I expected and can tell that Nigeria and South Africa are heavily represented, but I was also delighted to find some other countries lurking in there, like Togo! 3y
54 likes8 comments
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Tove_Reads
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Share your #mustreads of #Africa. I‘m addicted, and I‘ve read a lot, but let me know what you think should be on the list! 📚 📖

BarbaraJean Definitely Things Fall Apart and also Cry, the Beloved Country. And more contemporary: Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo and Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Adichie. (edited) 4y
Tove_Reads @BarbaraJean Haven‘t read Stay with Me, but should. Weirdly, I‘ve got the biggest African gap in Nigeria, even though they probably produce the second most literature, and good ones too! 4y
Ruthiella I second the recommendation of Adichie. I read Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun and thought both were excellent. 4y
41 likes3 comments
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elizabethlk
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Pickpick

Thanks so much for your patience! You can now read my full review of the most recent Lite Reads selection, The Sack by Namwali Serpell, link below. This grim story is brilliantly written in a way that few stories are, playing with style and form, and offering up a disturbing tale with many facts absent. Overall left me thinking. Let me know in the comments what you thought of this one! New selection shortly.

https://wp.me/p9KSXu-zU

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elizabethlk
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The new #LiteReads selection, The Sack by Namwali Serpell, is now available! You can find links to read (including an audio version) this Caine Prize winning literary short story in my full post, link below. Be sure to let me know in the comments what you think of it!

https://thefeministbibliothecary.wordpress.com/2020/07/06/lite-reads-selection-t...

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BookishFeminist
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#Bookhaul from yesterday! Politics and Prose in DC had its member sale this weekend, so I stocked up on some already discounted remainders for cheap. 😁

Notafraidofwords I'm jealous. 7y
Leftcoastzen Adore Politics and Prose, visit every time I am in the area. 7y
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mrozzz The Lonely City is FAB 👌🏻 7y
Bookish.SAM Loved, loved, loved The Lonely City! 7y
MaureenMc Loved The Tsar of Love and Techno! 7y
TheNextBook So if I tell you I still haven't made it to Politica and Prose how quickly will you force me to go!? 7y
BookishFeminist @TheNextBook GET IN THE CAR LOSER, WE'RE GOING BOOK SHOPPING 7y
BookishFeminist @TheNextBook I'm not even joking, are you free next weekend 7y
TheNextBook @BookishFeminist 😂😂😂School ends on Friday so next week I should be able to head out during the week. Probably Tuesday or Wednesday. 7y
115 likes4 stack adds10 comments
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LindsayReads
Africa39 | Wole Soyinka
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Just turned in my #LitsyAtoZ form! I'm doing a mix of authors and titles as I will likely be participating in several reading challenges this coming year. I am going to try to focus on authors from marginalized backgrounds and social justice themes to stay on track. Do you have a method to your madness with this? I do like the relative flexibility of it.
@bookishmarginalia

Keyoung I'm going to do this as well! Titles. Used 25 books from my TBR list. Had to find one for Q. 8y
LindsayReads @Keyoung Ooh, you are committed! 8y
44 likes2 comments