Open Country Mag is a platform covering 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
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Is in a Different Place Now, on Half of a Yellow Sun at 15, her private losses, and her public evolution, Sept. 20, 2021
How Teju Cole Opened a New Path in African Literature, on the 10th anniversary of his novel Open City, Jul. 4, 2021
Mark Gevisser’s Long Mission of Queer Visibility, on his journalism and activism career and latest book The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers, Mar. 19, 2021
Hannah Chukwu’s Call to Help Uplift Unheard Voices, on diversity in British publishing and editing Booker Prize winners Bernardine Evaristo and Marlon James, Feb. 5, 2021
With Novels & Images, Maaza Mengiste Is Reframing Ethiopian History, on her Booker Prize shortlisted novel The Shadow King and her photography work Project 3541, Jan. 16, 2021
How Tsitsi Dangarembga, with Her Trilogy of Zimbabwe, Overcame, on her Booker Prize shortlisted novel This Mournable Body, Dec. 30, 2020
Nigerian Literature Needed Editors. Two Women Stepped in To Groom Them., Dec. 26, 2020
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