The Egyptian poet Nadra Mabrouk and the Nubian Sudanese poet K. Eltinaé will guest-edit 20.35 Africa poetry series’ Volume 4. The editors of the 20.35 Africa collective are the Nigerian poets Ebenezer Agu (the founder), the American Nigerian poet I. S. Jones, the South African poet Mapule Mohulatsi, and the Nigerian poet Precious Okpechi. The name “20.35 Africa” comes from the collective’s objective to publish “African poets under 35 years of age but not below 20,” to “compile a collection of African poets, the relatively unknown, the budding, and the established, creating a balanced platform representing the continent’s contemporary voices.” By publishing poets both at the center and in the margins of the scene, 20.35 Africa has become a major resource institution for African poets.
The collective has added two more projects to the anthology series: “Conversations” and “New Poets.” The “Conversations” series is “an ongoing discussion on what poetry means for us all in this age; the ways it has morphed and the gaps it fills in our personal, social, & political lives.” The “New Poets” series “gives more individual visibility to contemporary African poets.”
THE GUEST EDITORS
Nadra Mabrouk is the author of Measurement of Holy (Akashic Books, 2020), part of the New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set. The recipient of the 2019 Brunel International African Poetry Prize, she holds an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University and works in publishing in New York City.
K. Eltinaé’s work has been translated into Arabic, Greek, Farsi, French, and Spanish. His work has appeared in The Ordinary Chaos of Being Human: Many Muslim Worlds (Penguin) and The African American Review, among others. He is the winner of The 2019 Beverly Prize for International Literature (Eyewear Publishing) and co-winner of the 2019 Dignity Not Detention Prize (Poetry International).
PREVIOUS ANTHOLOGIES
20.35 Africa released its first volume in 2018. It was guest-edited by the Sudanese American poet Safia Elhillo and the Nigerian poet Gbenga Adesina. It was dedicated to the Ugandan poet Joel Benjamin Ntwatwa, who passed on in February 2018.
20.35 Africa Vol. I. 
20.35 Africa Vol. II. 
20.35 Africa Vol. III.
20.35 Africa’s second poetry volume, 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry Vol. 2, was released in 2019. It was guest-edited by the Moroccan writer Yasmin Belkhyr and the Zambia-born poet Kayo Chingonyi. It was dedicated to the Nigerian poet Chukwuemeka Akachi, who died in May 2019.
The collective’s third volume, 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry Vol. III, was published in 2020. It was edited by I.S. Jones and the Zambian poet Cheswayo Mphanza. In his review of the anthology, Open Country Mag’s Emmanuel Esomnofu writes that the poems “hold some of the most visceral and philosophical stanzas you’ll read in any anthology, in any country.”
