Paper short abstract:

This paper engages with urban literary publics in contemporary Malawi and their digital networks. Using an example of a newly formed platform/initiative in Blantyre, the focus will be on the interweave of the local and the global; the community and the individual.

Paper long abstract:

Since around 2010 there has been a new wave of excitement about creative writing and literary expression in Malawi's second largest city, Blantyre. This paper particularly considers 'Story Ink Africa' which was concretized last year and has expanded both on the ground and digitally in 2019. The goal of Story Ink Africa is to encourage storytellers to write and share their work. Beginning as an individual's initiative, such literary exchange functions as activism, mobilizing communities and building publics locally and globally. Drawing on ideas about the literary field, this paper highlights that literary activism is a weave of the local and the global, manifesting in various coexisting structural ways (Krishnan, 2019). Following this, the paper goes on to consider individual agency and the significance of individuals' voices and perspectives in public-making (Bourdieu, 1999). The overall aim of the paper is to engage with the literary topography of contemporary Malawi.