This is a tricky project to introduce. The aim is to read fiction from all across Africa. It will be predominantly contemporary fiction because that's the way my tastes skew, but there's no hard and fast rule other than the writer's nationality has to be African.
I don't want to be one of those terrible people who thinks 'Africa' qualifies as a category in its own right. Can you imagine someone saying they were going to embark on an 'Asian' fiction project? A project that would encompass everything from Haruki Murakami to Arundhati Roy? It would be absolutely unhinged. My original plan for this was to focus solely on West Africa, based on the fact that I wrote my dissertation on Nigerian-American writing. The problem is, it's quite hard to find, for example, Beninese or Togolese writing translated into English, and there were also a lot of other novelists I wanted to cover who wouldn't qualify as being from that area. So I've expanded the remit to the entirety of Africa. I feel there are probably a lot of vibrant literary cultures across the continent I've never read anything from; I want a good excuse to dive into Angolan literature, Botswanan literature, Congolese literature, Malian literature.
So I'm embarking on this project purely for pleasure, attempting to draw no broad thematic parallels between the things I read, in the same way that attempting to link French and Russian literature together because they're on the same continent would be a waste of time. It's just going to be a fun learning experience and a chance to encounter some different voices. I'm really excited.
ZIMBABWE - We Need New Names - NoViolet Bulawayo
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