For #ReadingAfrica Week 2025, we posed a series of questions to some Catalyst authors about the landscape of African literature. Their answers offer a glimpse into a lively and ongoing conversation.

1.  The themes of African literature reflect the rich diversity of the African continent.  How does your storytelling reflect the balance of tradition and modernity?

Bridget Krone: This isn’t something I tackle consciously. I look for things that serve my story. All my books use modern settings but they will reference something traditional. For example in ‘The Cedarville Shop’ I use traditional details like making clay animals, mouse hunting, burning malongwe (dried cow pats), the use of grass to carry fish etc. In another book I wrote recently I use the story of how King Richard the 111’s body was found in a car park in Leicester City. When the Leicester City soccer team starts to do unexpectedly well in the Premier League, the children in my story have no problem linking this to ancestor worship and the blessings that flow when the ancestors are honoured. 

This isn’t something I tackle consciously

Donica Merhazion: In many ways, I feel like a bridge between the traditional and modern. My parents were born and raised in a village in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Some of those traditions have passed on to me and are integrated in the way I live my life, very far from those roots. My parents are the best storytellers I know. My childhood is full of memories of them sitting around the traditional coffee ceremony spread my mother would meticulously arrange in the living room every sunday. I tried to write this book in a way that would honor their brilliant storytelling and also infuse some of mine.

Faraaz Mahomed: I write from a personal place, and I think that in itself reflects a blend of tradition and modernity, a blend of someone who is rooted in Africa but global in outlook and in lived experience.

Hannes Barnard: I try to be true to what I know, what I’ve experienced, and what I perceive. Being from Africa, one is constantly aware of the continent’s rich and varied storytelling traditions—even within a single country or province. My African roots, past and present, are inseparable from my writing, but my travels beyond the continent also shape my perspective and influence my work. I love both history and current affairs, so balancing tradition and modernity comes naturally. Ultimately, the story is the most important thing. If the story is strong enough, everything else aligns around it.

Mike Nicol: My focus is on the crime - both in its present form and as inherited from the apartheid-police state - that bedevils South African society. I make no attempt to balance "tradition" and modernity. However, I did give a nod and a wink to a "traditional" system by introducing a sangoma (a person, usually a woman, with supernatural powers) in Falls the Shadow. But the presentation is satirical.

Sahra Noor: I grew up with the rhythms of Somali oral storytelling, where wisdom is carried through poems, proverbs, humor to reveal our history, to guide, to entertain. That oral, poetic tradition shaped how I see the world, and it shows up in the way I write about family, community, survival, and the culture that holds our people together. At the same time, my life has been shaped by my urban, cosmopolitan family, migration, and the constant negotiation of identity in new places, so I don’t see tradition and modernity as opposites.  To me, they speak to each other constantly. In Salt in the Snow, I try to honor both: the ancestral voices that travel with me, and the contemporary world I live that keeps reshaping who I am.

Tsitsi Mapepa: Through my storytelling, I seek to balance tradition and modernity by exploring my characters’ identities and the purposes that define their lives and journeys.

Samantha Keller: I’m not sure this question really relates to my writing, although I’m very interested in the rich diversity of the African continent and the importance of giving voice to individual stories. My novel is set in South Africa in the 1950s, and I suppose I can’t help but bring a more modern sensibility to the themes of race and place and gender present in the story. If tradition continues to support and uplift and hold people in a place they feel safe and where they have a strong, positive identity, then it should be preserved. However, tradition for tradition’s sake can also be oppressive and in these cases it should be challenged. Writing The Light Remains, which is historical fiction, I did feel a responsibility to reflect the time, but I was careful to choose language that didn’t do harm and to avoid racial and gender stereotypes. I tried to follow Nadine Gordimer’s model and present the society at the time honestly, allowing its flaws and the its flawed ideas to reveal themselves.

2. How do your stories weave together local and global issues to connect, educate, inspire, and reach your readers globally?

Faraaz Mahomed: Again, I would say lived experience. I think the dichotomy of local and global is always tenuous because every story is both. My book in particular aims to draw multiple parallels between apartheid and Black Lives Matter, and between social stratification in South Africa and in the US, so the interweaving might happen in the interpersonal, but it doesn’t happen in isolation from the global.  

Bridget Krone: I make use of ‘Author’s notes’ to explain context to global readers. First prize is if I can weave in an explanation into the story – but that can break up the flow of the story, so I’m careful not to make ‘education’ too obvious. I have found that the more specific a story is, the more it has universal appeal. Sometimes I do deliberately tackle something that I think widens people’s perception of an ‘African’ theme to include something unexpected. In ‘Small Mercies’ for example I introduce Indian history, which is not something that overseas readers might associate with South Africa.

Donica Merhazion:  There are many layers to the answer to this question. This story is one that could represent any place in the world where conflict has changed people’s lives so dramatically they have had to find ways to survive. I remember standing in a former prison turned museum in Vietnam. It was a high school that had been converted into a prison. They left everything as it was when people were tortured there and I remember standing in one of the rooms and having an overwhelming feeling of familiarity and sadness. This in a country thousands of miles away from where I was born yet, we have the same lived experience. Human nature is very similar everywhere you go and once you learn to see it, you can’t unsee it! I hope readers of this story can connect to the beauty of resilience and see how, you don’t choose who you love but who you love can save your life.

Hannes Barnard: Most of my stories are set in South Africa—a country of extraordinary beauty, complexity, and diversity. Writing about places I know and love gives me more creative energy to invest in characters and plot. Human questions and relationships are universal. Two friends wrestling with shifting boundaries in South Africa would face similar emotions and uncertainties in the USA, UK, or Australia. By sharing my love for my country, I hope to offer readers a glimpse of a South Africa they may not know, while also showing that our joys and struggles are remarkably similar across continents. At the end of the day, I simply want to write the kinds of stories I love reading—stories that resonate.

Tsitsi Mapepa: I concentrate on subjects and themes that have long affected human experience. Through this focus, I frame questions for readers with the intention of inspiring or educating them.

Mike Nicol: My stories are focused on local issues which - because humanity has much the same problems everywhere - can resonate as global issues. However, there are often "international" characters in my fiction who have an impact on the story. But in the main, my novels are not written to reach global readers. If they do that is a bonus. 

Samantha Keller: Like The Light Remains, most of my short stories and the novels I’m currently working on are character driven. I’m very interested in people, particularly women, and how they manage the often quite confronting world they face every day. I’m interested in exploring how the universal can be captured in the particular. Finding global concerns in hyper-local situations. By exploring how even the smallest moment of banal domesticity can reveal an entire society I hope I manage to connect with something in my readers. Find a moment of emotional clarity that someone, somewhere finds in themselves and expands their understanding.

Sahra Noor: My stories start from specific places: Mogadishu, Utange, Minneapolis, Nairobi and detail my personal journey of trying to make sense of change. But the questions underneath those stories are universal: What does it mean to belong? How do we carry our past into new worlds? What holds a family or a community together when everything around them is shifting? 

By writing honestly about my own experiences, I’m also writing about the larger forces that shape so many lives: migration, conflict, identity, culture, and the push and pull between home and possibility. I don’t separate the personal from the political because most of us who’ve lived in transition never get that luxury, because our daily lives are often shaped by decisions made far away, by people who don’t look like us.

As I write about these topics, my goal isn’t to lecture. It’s to tell my story and bring readers close enough to relate to it, and to feel the humanity behind the headlines. I hope when readers connect with my work, they learn what it’s like to live with the tension between hope and hardship, or at the very least, my story gives context to realities they’ve heard about but never fully understood.

3. Technology and different platforms have allowed authors to reach readers in almost every corner of the world.  What digital platforms do you find more effective?

Donica Merhazion: Personally I love to connect with people 1-1 over email or the messaging components of social media platforms. In an ever growing world it is becoming easier and easier to do that and I find that there can be more genuine connections that way. Humans are hardwired to make connections to meet our social needs. With those genuine connections, I find that I love the interactions I have and because of those connections, reaching other readers becomes a chain that keeps going. The one sided aspect of social media thins the link in that chain but I also recognize and honor the ways they help me to reach people that would have never heard of me before. I post celebrations and updates on Instagram, facebook and Linkedin and let the social media algorithms do their thing!

Hannes Barnard: It’s a moving target. I don’t think I’ve fully utilised all the platforms available. TikTok and Instagram have created spaces that were unimaginable a decade ago. I’m active on most major platforms—including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook—and I’d like to explore more while expanding my presence on the ones I already use. We’re fortunate to live in a time when global reach is literally at our fingertips.

Sahra Noor: Social media platforms have allowed authors to reach, but most recently, Tiktok’s #Booktok has blown up across the African continent with content creators who are promoting African authors and it’s exciting to see it.

4. What creative works would you consider impactful to convey the personal stories of the African migrant or refugee?

Tsitsi Mapepa: Creative works that convey the personal stories of African migrants and refugees often combine intimate narratives with broader cultural and historical contexts. Literature, for example, is especially impactful—novels, memoirs, and poetry allow readers to enter the emotional landscapes of migration and exile. Films and documentaries provide visual immediacy, showing both the hardship and resilience of displaced communities. Music and oral storytelling traditions remain powerful, carrying memory and identity across borders. Visual art, too, can embody the tension between home and diaspora, often using symbolism to express loss and hope. Together, these creative forms not only preserve personal stories but also spark global conversations about migration, belonging, and human dignity. 

Sahra Noor: There are so many, but top of mind are We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan, Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue,  and poetry collections by  African poets Warsan Shire, Safia Elhillo, and Kayo Chingony

Donica Merhazion: Dinaw Mengestu and Maaza Mengiste have a really authentic story telling style that I connected to immediately. It could be because they are from and write about the region I am from. I find their work across novels to be authentic to the stories of the place and the people without making concessions for readers that might not understand the nuances of the culture. Sometimes I read books that over explain something written in an African language or over explain a tradition or ceremony and I can tell that it was written for a different audience. 

Hannes Barnard: Films, limited series, and novels are the most impactful mediums. If I may reference a non-African example, the film The Swimmers portrays the refugee experience with extraordinary power. Books, however, take emotion even further. They allow readers to explore the depth of tragedy and triumph in the lives of those seeking a new beginning.

Samantha Keller: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and her short story The Thing Around Your Neck, both confront the illusion of the grass being greener in the USA. All Men Want to Know by Algerian writer Nina Bouraoui explores ideas of identity—being one thing and another—caught between France and Algeria, her French mother and Algerian father, her dual nationalities, and her sexuality. Silence Is My Mother Tongue by Sulaiman Addonia is a beautifully written book set in a Sudanese refugee camp. It’s a work of fiction but reflects Addonia’s own experience and is a sensitively told story about identity, family, societal roles, and language.

5. How have certain novels kept African literature in conversations all year in countries outside and inside the African continent?  What have been the most impactful themes?

Tsitsi Mapepa: I think Reading Africa Week shouldn’t be limited to the African continent alone. The world should know about it in order to engage with the subjects and topics presented there. That is another way to keep African literature in conversation all year, both within and beyond the continent. It is about delving deeper into subjects and themes that are rarely explored—the cultures, languages, and histories of African societies. At times, it also concerns how people move on from the past and embrace their identity, even when they live abroad. Novels that carry these truths often spark conversations across the world.

Donica Merhazion: I think the power here lies with the publishers. What is chosen to be printed, marketed and distributed is all determined by the decisionmakers within the publishing industry. Having gone through a journey with my own Afrocentric novel, I learned that what is on our bookshelves is predetermined by people far away based on what can sell. Many African traditions have deep oral story telling traditions. I know from my own experiences, those stories are riveting and so immersive. In my pre-literate days when I was very young, my mother was my book, she was my storyteller and in her stories, I was the central character who beat off lions and conquered the world. When I learned to read, write and speak English in my early learning years, her story telling stopped and was replaced by lots and lots of books, none of which were in my mother tongue nor in my home. They were wonderful and I was fully engaged but I was never represented in any of them. As an adult, I made the connection that the publishing industry is not yet plugged into the powerful oral storytelling that happens everyday in African households. As more and more books are printed that represent our world and culture, the more we can talk about them. The first step is to get the stories on bookshelves so we can have something to talk about.

Hannes Barnard: Stories stay alive when readers connect with a character or narrative on a deeper level. Think of Namina Forna’s work and its global success, or the success of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, or how Damon Galgut’s The Promise—a deeply South African story—won the Booker Prize. As long as we continue writing stories that touch, challenge, excite, and inspire, African literature will transcend borders and stay in conversation throughout the year.

Mike Nicol: Probably the most important theme is corruption - within governments, between governments, in the private sector, in religious institutions. This, unfortunately, gives a negative view of the African states but then good crime novels are political satire and because of this can be highly entertaining. 

Sahra Noor:  I’m a member of a vibrant book club in Nairobi  and themes like belonging, womanhood, generational change, and the collision between tradition and modern life keep resurfacing because they reflect what so many people are living through today.

6. How can we strive for inclusion for readers who live in remote areas of Africa that do not have adequate internet connections?

Hannes Barnard: It is a passion of mine to get a book into the hands of every child (and adult). Far too many homes have no books at all. There is no simple solution, but working with NGOs to provide literature—especially fun, engaging books that spark a love of reading—is a key step. Where possible, partnering with organisations that expand internet access or provide devices can also help. Personally, I set aside money every month to buy books. When I reach certain savings milestones, I donate those books to children who cannot afford them. If we all contribute in small ways, the cumulative impact could be enormous.

Mike Nicol: During some SA writing festivals in the major cities there are outreach ventures where the writers are taken to the smaller towns and villages to give readings, hold panel discussions, give talks etc. Probably the same model could be used in many African countries.

Bridget Krone: I have written two wordless picture books for Bookdash – a social impact publisher that distributes cheerful picture books to children under the age of 5. Bookdash are funded by corporates and various foundations and they rely on authors, designers and illustrators giving freely of their time. So far they have distributed 4.5 million books. This has been the most successful, inclusive model that I know of, so far.  But how a ‘for profit’ publisher uses these ideas, is not something I have solutions for. 

Donica Merhazion: Storytelling exists in those areas and not only does it exist, it is vibrant and entertaining. Stories told in those places can make you laugh and cry at the same time. Our elders used stories to warn us of the dangers of the outside world, to teach us about spirituality, to instill values, to teach us about love and perseverance. What the question here asks is how can we infuse a new form of storytelling (books) into these societies and I suppose I would ask the question, how can we better represent those stories in our world? How can we tap into the beauty of their storytelling by bringing that into the conversations we are having both in and outside the continent? How can we document the oral storytelling into books they can read where they are the central characters in the story?

Sahra Noor: Low-tech: mobile libraries, community reading circles, printed materials, radio storytelling hours, and partnerships with local schools. We sometimes forget that a single paperback can reach dozens of readers in rural communities when it’s shared intentionally. 

7. How can African associations that promote literacy programs promote African literature all year with the help from local college students who are focusing on African studies?

Bridget Krone: College students need to know what is out there and then I think they will be more likely to promote the books. I know for example that there is a course on children’s literature at the University of the Western Cape. I know someone who teaches the programme – if you’d like me to connect her to Catalyst Press I can do this. She might have a budget for books to show college students or Catalyst could donate copies to showcase what they offer? 

Tsitsi Mapepa: When local college students are few, the challenge should not rest on their shoulders alone. Reaching out to a broader audience, such as students abroad engaged in African studies, could make a real difference.

Donica Merhazion: That is a wonderful question and a wonderful mission to pursue. Part of the traditions we have lost in this modern age of technology is that we have lost some of that ability and time to sit and listen. This was central to generations of communities that came before us. Going into places where stories are told and where there is time and space to listen to them is where the gold mine of literacy programs that are relevant and directly connect to the communities are. The question to ask is - is there enough African literature published to be promoted? Do we have early reader books set in Africa or in local context where young readers can learn to decode? Do we have enough books printed in local languages that students can learn from?

Faraaz Mahomed: I think we can be better with the networking stuff, building an ecosystem that keeps the conversation going and keeps people interested in each other’s work and life stories.

Sahra Noor: Students are full of energy and often looking for meaningful fieldwork so these associations should consider creating structured volunteer programs where students host reading groups, help with community libraries, mentor young readers, or organize mini book festivals.

Hannes Barnard: Students have the advantage of being immersed in both classic and contemporary African literature. Their insight can help guide intentional and thoughtful book selections. By prioritising local books, programmes can ensure young readers see themselves and their communities reflected in the stories. This not only builds connection but also nurtures and inspires local talent.

8. How can creative writing programs across the USA be contacted to engage in conversations and awareness about African literature, not only with the works of well-known authors, but with works from aspiring and recently published authors?

Sahra Noor: I’m new to the literary world but it seems to me that a good place to start is doing direct outreach: guest lectures, virtual author talks, partnerships with African literary organizations, and themed reading lists that highlight emerging writers. A more formal “open invitation” or a curated list of new African work could also work.

Tsitsi Mapepa: Organizing events like book signings and readings, featuring both established and emerging authors as guest speakers in creative writing programs, can significantly enhance awareness of African literature across the USA and other continents.

Donica Merhazion: The first challenge to overcome may be to open access and interest in Africa. It is human nature to gravitate to the familiar and African stories are not yet familiar. Growing up in Africa, we are constantly exposed to books from the US, Europe etc and are used to reading about characters and stories set in those places. Because there aren’t many books set here, we grow up with those stories and so they become familiar. Growing up in the US, children are very rarely exposed to any text that has anything to do with Africa and if they do, most likely it has something to do with themes like animals in the wild and such that are a very small part of the story of the African experience. Here it is also important to say that African is a very broad word to represent the continent, each African country is a world within itself so even saying African literature washes out the individuality and diversity within each country and deeper still within each community that the country holds. Just as African readers have spent lifetimes reading books outside their culture until it becomes their norm, creative programs would need to integrate that learning to understand that there is a whole universe yet to be explored. 

Hannes Barnard: One idea is a “lucky dip” or “book roulette.” Select a wide range of African authors from the past decade and introduce their books to creative writing programmes through themed bundles—by country, region, or alphabet. Encouraging African authors to create short videos, webinars, or virtual visits about their work would also add a personal dimension that helps bridge the gap between author and reader.

9. How can school children in grade school, middle school and high school be encouraged to read African literature during the school year?

Hannes Barnard: First, make the books available. Then show learners that although settings may differ, the questions characters face are universal. Exposure is key: once students experience the quality, variety, and freshness of African writing, they realise it can be just as compelling—if not more so—than what they are used to. African literature is not solely serious or sombre; it can be exciting, funny, and wonderfully unique. With enough exposure, it becomes part of their natural reading appetite.

Faraaz Mahomed: I think this is a difficult one, but I imagine it’s about the quality after all. I think African authors write phenomenally well, and if there’s good literature, it’s bound to make it into festivals and author events and programs, which in turn means translation into educational settings.

Sahra Noor: Exposure early builds curiosity and direct outreach to schools and teachers are critical. We need to encourage teachers to choose age-appropriate books with relatable characters and compelling plots that are well suited for in-class discussions or creative projects that engage the students more deeply.

Donica Merhazion:  Really it starts from being aware that exploring the unfamiliar makes one grow as a reader and a thinker. Speaking for myself, it is as an adult I realized that my whole life, I was invisible in the books that I read. Going back to the first question, the decisions have to be made within the publishing industry to open the gates to let more of these stories through and into bookshelves. Children can’t read literature they don’t have access to. As a teacher I can tell you it is very difficult to find middle grade books for my classroom library even with a strong desire to curate books that my students can read that represent any kind of African life. The teachers also have to be exposed to what is possible, if they don’t have access to books then it becomes even more difficult to encourage their students to read. I am grateful to Catalyst Press for actively pursuing books that are diverse in nature and many of which represent stories from the continent. May we have many more!