Convenor: Dr Faith Ben-Daniels newwritersinafrica@gmail.com
In recent times, a new group of African writers, theatre practitioners, artists, and film makers have emerged. By new, we refer to creatives whose works date from 2000 to present. Their works are changing the narrative of African literature, theatre, art, and film, by focusing on emerging issues within and outside of the continent, and how these issues affect contemporary African lives and situations. This new group of writers have found varied ways of lending their voices in the blending of old and new narratives and tropes in [re]telling African stories from the continent and from the diaspora. They have ventured into new territories and revisited old tropes from varied and explosive lenses of nuanced ideas questioning, engaging, and destabilizing the status quo of old traditional ideas through their works.
This stream, therefore, seeks papers discussing new forms of African literature, theatre, art, and film, emerging on the continent and in the diaspora. The stream seeks to raise and find answers to questions such as: what are the new subject matters and themes in contemporary African literature? Who are the new African writers, and how are they changing the narratives and tropes of African literature in their writings? In what ways have these new writers branched from the old trajectory of the arts in Africa and how are they carving out the new? What new trajectories are the focus of emerging short stories in Africa? What is the focus of contemporary African art, theatre, and film? In what new ways are African art and film projecting voices of the marginalized in African communities and the diaspora? How are contemporary African activist writers pushing activism on the continent? How is the Anthropocene presented in contemporary African literature, among other questions related to the idea of the ‘new’ in African literature.
