Just as crucially, the decline and eventual disappearance of AWS less than a decade ago revealed what a critical role it had in shaping the African literary imagination. Today Africa, even with the emergent local noise of FM radio and the immediacy of the internet, has grown strange to itself. Nations, to paraphrase philosopher Stephen Chan, are built on words. Because that supply of words has run dry, African writers of my generation have begin to talk to their readers at home through a western filter. To a large extent, the work of the post-nationalist generation of African writers has been dedicated to resistance - as if to say we are human, despite the depicted chaos and pornography of violence displayed on global television networks. "Where are our big questions?" asks Zimbabwean writers Brian Chikwava, posing a challenge to this post-nationalist generation of scribes. "Being a continent that enters 'history' through the era of empire building," He says,"It's fair to say our intellectual engagement with 'history' starts in earnest with the generation of the Ngugis, Achebes, Senghors, and Soyinkas. That generation raised big questions about history, language, and nationhood. Where are ours?" Behind there questions is the disappearance of literacy publishing in Africa. It is an issue which frustrates many African writers - engagement with Africa without a continent wide publishing machinery means that it is completely mediated by the west.
- Parselelo Kantai. Turning the Page, Focus on Africa. Excerpted from (Issue Oct - Dec 2009) p. 63
