Open Country Mag is a multiplatform space for African literature. I founded it on 5 May 2020 but it launched on 26 December 2020. It exists to record literary culture in Africa; to make the deep archives of literary resources, data, and history available for use anywhere, from general reading to academia; and, crucially, to be a ladder for the next generation of African writers, thinkers, literary journalists, and curators, to provide necessary tools in their development.
Open Country Mag produces journalism and in-depth stories about the institutions and people shaping African literature. We publish reviews and announcements of the latest books. We provide guides to opportunities—grants, prizes, fellowships, residencies, workshops—and to events—festivals, book launches, conferences. We curate lists and recommendations. And when the time is right, when we have the funding we need to pay contributors, we will publish new fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction.
PROFILES
Mark Gevisser’s Long Mission of Queer Visibility, Mar. 19, 2021
Hannah Chukwu’s Call to Help Uplift Unheard Voices, Feb. 5, 2021
With Novels & Images, Maaza Mengiste Is Reframing Ethiopian History, Jan. 16, 2021
How Tsitsi Dangarembga, with Her Trilogy of Zimbabwe, Overcame, Dec. 30, 2020
Nigerian Literature Needed Editors. Two Women Stepped in To Groom Them., Dec. 26, 2020
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