Worlds of Print: Creative Writing in Colonial West Africa, 1880s- 1930s

This lecture will give an overview of the central role of African-owned newspapers in creating platforms and publics for the earliest West African creative writers in English. The lecture will ask: what kind of cultural and political encounters were articulated by authors in writing fiction and poetry for the press? Why did they choose English above other literary languages?

Steph Newell is Professor of English at Yale University and Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Newcastle University. Her research interests include anglophone African print cultures, with particular attention to media audiences and readerships in colonial West Africa, and creative writing as articulated through local print cultures, including
 newspapers, pamphlets, novels, and magazines. She is the author of five monographs on African literature and popular print cultures. Her forthcoming book, Histories of Dirt: Media and Urban Life in Colonial and Postcolonial Lagos, works at the intersection of African literary studies and urban cultural history.

This lecture is supported by the Leverhulme Trust.

Picture credit: Portrait by Yusuff Durodola (2016)

Contact j.a.terry@durham.ac.uk for more information about this event.