The African Poetry Book Fund (APBF) promotes and advances the development and publication of the poetic arts through its book series, contests, workshops, and seminars, and thro…
COVER FEATURE
New African Voices
A detail from Merikokeb Berhanu’s (Ethiopia/US) Untitled LII (2020), acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 in. / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art When floods rose, the tree branches thinned, carrying nothin…
Merikokeb Berhanu (Ethiopia/US), Untitled LII (2020), acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 in. / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art From the watchtower, you utter the suburbs I grow up in, ripe for the benef…
A detail from Daniela Yohannes (UK/Guadeloupe), Black Oil (2019), Acrylic on Linen, 116 X 89 cm / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art We pause at the edge of the river listen to its rhythms languid…
Photo by Terry Kearney / Flickr There should have been roses . . . Instead, I clutched red and white carnations my aunt bought from a street vendor outside the courthouse. I should have…
Daniela Yohannes (UK/Guadeloupe), Black Oil (2019), Acrylic on Linen, 116 X 89 CM / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art What we do not say to each other bites speech into ultimatums a guillotine ch…
A detail from Dereje Demissie (Ethiopia), Psychscape (2009) In Krio, there is a word with Atlantic Ocean spray still swirling in its gut: Freeborn. I heard this word often after dinner was…
Dereje Demissie (Ethiopia), Psychscape (2009) On my mind daily with the insistence of a metronome is that thin granular layer, rich humus, spare humility, black earth daily lifted and blow…
Girma Berta, Asmara XII (2018), digital archival print, 45 x 60 cm / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art Oscillating between Asmara, Eritrea, and Washington, DC, the narrator reflects on the powe…
Detail from Girma Berta (ETHIOPIA), Moving Shadows XI (2016), digital archival print, 40 x 40 cm / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art after Inji Efflatoun Sarah Hegazi Malak al-Kashef …
Girma Berta, Moving Shadows XI (2016), digital archival print, 40 x 40 cm / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art after “A Walk through Intimacy,” by Theresah Ankomah Under the auspices of the…
Dereje Demissie (Ethiopia), Psychscape (2009) A grandmother thinks of her two kite-flying grandchildren each time she wakes and sees the birds outside her window. The windows start…
Daniela Yohannes (UK/Guadeloupe), Subterranean (2019), acrylic on linen, 116 x 89 cm / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art there are flowers you can’t touch outside someone’s house at night, a mothe…
Merikokeb Berhanu (Ethiopia/US), Untitled XLVII (2020), acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 in. / Courtesy of Addis Fine Art You always serve coitus with a side of cheese silkworms squirming in the…
Dereje Demissie (Ethiopia), Psychscape (2009) This poem is written in response to a news story in Spotlight (South Africa), headlined as follows: “What the Charlotte Maxeke fire…
Dereje Demissie (Ethiopia), Psychscape (2009) There are many things I wish to tell you about the state of African literature today, but none would be able to be contained in a single issue,…
March 2022
The March 2022 issue of World Literature Today foregrounds New African Voices in a cover feature, guest-edited and introduced by Mahtem Shiferraw, poetry, fiction, and essays from Australia, Denmark, Greece, and Mexico; + reviews of 30 outstanding new books from all over the world, plus recommended collections of letters and memoirs in translation.