Africa39 by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey
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 Bogotá39, 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 Vásquez (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)
A vivid, evocative, colourful and surprising portrait of the continent through selected stories from a wide variety of young authors, that puts African writing firmly on the literary mapUnusual and utterly compelling * Mariella Frostrup, Waitrose Weekend Books of the Year *
A selection from novels, in a thick, bright yellow volme that promises much and consistently delivers. What unifies all these authors, other than talent, is their sheer diversity. There's a tremendous variety of outlooks, and a profusion of styles … Africa39 sports some fine writing and confronts preconceptions at every turn * Glasgow Herald *
This collection was a really necessary undertaking . . . There’s a kind of renaissance taking place, it seems, among young Arab writers . . .We need their voices now more than ever * Dave Eggers, Salon, 'Favorite Book of the Year', on Beirut39 *
Timely and worthwhile . . . Brimming with exuberance and sparkling with innovation * Guardian on Beirut39 *
A selection from novels, in a thick, bright yellow volme that promises much and consistently delivers. What unifies all these authors, other than talent, is their sheer diversity. There's a tremendous variety of outlooks, and a profusion of styles … Africa39 sports some fine writing and confronts preconceptions at every turn * Glasgow Herald *
This collection was a really necessary undertaking . . . There’s a kind of renaissance taking place, it seems, among young Arab writers . . .We need their voices now more than ever * Dave Eggers, Salon, 'Favorite Book of the Year', on Beirut39 *
Timely and worthwhile . . . Brimming with exuberance and sparkling with innovation * Guardian on Beirut39 *
Ellah Wakatama Allfrey is a freelance editor and critic, and was former deputy editor of Granta magazine.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781408854662 |
| ISBN 10 | 140885466X |
| Title | Africa39 |
| Author | Ellah Wakatama Allfrey |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC |
| Year published | 2014-10-23 |
| Number of pages | 384 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |