To celebrate its fifth anniversary, the online African literary magazine Afreada has launched an annual print edition featuring a selection of its published works. This year’s edition, Issue 00, is free; the magazine is giving away 200 copies to readers. Afreada was founded in 2015 by Nancy Adimora, now a talent and audience development manager at HarperCollins’ diversity and inclusion initiative. The name is a fusion of the words “Africa” and “Reader.” Afreada believes “in the transformative power of great storytelling and its ability to reflect and shape the world around us.”
In a BBC interview, Adimora said she chose to first publish online because she wanted to create a pan-African platform that would highlight works from every part of the continent and beyond—and so opted for that instead of print publishing with its limitations. “Online [publishing] just made perfect sense,” she said. “It’s very easy to start. It’s very easy to engage with different audiences and it’s very easy. . . to get people interested in stories from across Africa and not just their local libraries or their local bookstores.”
Afreada also organizes flash fiction competitions to avail writers the opportunity to be published on its website and earn a cash prize of £100. This they have done in partnership with Africa Writes, the UK’s biggest festival of African literature.
To win a free copy of Afreada‘s Issue 00, the announcement read, “all you have to do is…sign up to our mailing list. Winners will be selected at random and contacted before 31 December.” The magazine states that it would pay a token fee for all accepted submissions from next year.
Visit here for more details.
