When Etonnants Voyageurs launched its African branch in Bamako in 2001, the festival became a springboard for an entire generation of African writers. Etonnants Voyageurs’ 2002 anthology “Nouvelles Voix d’Afrique” (“New Voices of Africa”) played a major role in uncovering talents. Simply look at the contents’ page : all featuring writers have since been confirmed as major voices of their time.
We have reached a new stage ; there will therefore be a new anthology, which will feature 25 writers, either well-known or yet to be discovered. We wager that they will leave their mark over the course of the coming decade. Twenty five short-stories will describe this Africa on the move, a surprising and frightening and fascinating Africa.
This anthology will feature renowned writers of all of Africa, from Algeria to South Africa, who will tell us the turmoil and the incredible diversity of this continent :Breyten Breytenbach (South Africa), Florent Couao-Zotti (Bénin), Mia Couto (Mozambique), Alaa El Aswany (Égypt), Abdulrazak Gurnah (Zanzibar), Henri Lopes (Congo), Léonora Miano (Cameroun), Boualem Sansal(Algéria), Sami Tchak (Togo), Abdourahman Waberi (Djibouti)
But it will also feature a new wave of African writers and voices that will be discovered in the coming years. This fresh outlook forces the reader to change its mental preconceptions and clearly falls within the great “world literature” category :
Edem Awumey (Togo), No Violet Bulawayo (Zimbabwe), Brian Chikwava (Zimbabwe), Noo Saro Wiwa (Nigeria), Teju Cole (Nigeria), Wilfried N’Sondé (Congo Brazzaville), Julien Mabiala Bissila(Congo-Brazzaville), Mackenzy Orcel (Haïti), Felwine Sarr (Sénégal), Yahia Belaskri(Algérie), Helon Habila(Nigeria), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria), Kopano Matlwa (South Africa), Niq Mhlongo (South Africa), Binyavanga Wainaina (Kenya).
African novels no longer describe African villages, they no longer lay out anticolonialist feelings ; they no longer portray a mythical Africa enshrined in tradition. What is now put to the fore is both the experience of exile and of the monstrous and hybrid nature of sprawling cities, where multiculturalism and intermixing become possible. The creation of this diversified new world is the underpinning of what Achille Mbembé calls “Afropolitan modernity”. Beyond literature, a new street culture is emerging with slam, hip-hop and rap, through which the youth can express its rage and its hopes.
Rotimi Babatunde, No Violet Bulawayo, Brian Chickwava, Teju Cole and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received the Caine Prize, which the Times Literary Supplement classifies as the “Booker Prize for African Literatures”, for the short-stories featuring in this anthology.