Enter the Titans

You've never had it so good, all you lovers of African writing. What were the chances of 2 heavyweight websites serving up addictive doses of African literature being launched round about the same time? Well, it's happened. Wide-ranging, seriously ambitious and already amazingly vibrant. Welcome 'African Writing' & PONAL....

African Writing - incorporating a website as well as a print edition (going monthly in print from September). There is already so much to read on this website - new short ficiton from Helon Habila, lots of poets, cartoons, literary news and more.

Behind 'African Writing' is the publisher/editor team of Chuma Nwokolo Jr & Afam Akeh.

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Here's what Nwokolo Jr had to say about the publication: "African Writing is a literary paper, which also has an online presence. It is the first open sales publication of its kind with an All-African perspective, offering new writing from, and information on, the literatures of the continent. African Writing is interested in the literary lives, literary work and thoughts of those who make writing happen in the African world... We will reflect the faces, controversies and peculiar flavour of the African writing world, a world increasingly inclusive in the processing of its familiarisation with other world writings and writers.

• Check out African Writing's list of 50 African writers.

PONAL - The brainchild of Pius Adesanmi and Amatoritsero Ede, PONAL (Project On New African Literatures), this features photo galleries of literary events, writing news, resources and information on conferences, audio of authors reading their works; while also highlighting the more 'obscure' gems by under-appreciated African writers. And that's not all. There's a Gboungboun ('Loudspeaker' in English) Magazine, edited by Ede.

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Here's a bit about what PONAL has in store: "We present exciting new and emergent African literatures, especially those trapped within the ideological, political, economic, and institutional contexts of the Postcolony, and excluded by the canonising mechanisms of the metropolitan academy... we will disseminate, archive, and comment on the works of well-known, emergent and relatively unknown but equally engaging writers of the third generation from the entire continent."