Paper short abstract:

The proposed paper looks at the African city space by analysing the contemporary short story through digital literary platforms.

Paper long abstract:

The proposed paper seeks to explore the centrality of digital platforms in contemporary African literary production and canonisation. It analyses the influence of such online platforms like literary blogs, online magazines, and journals, arguing that digital publishing platforms have provided the contemporary African writer with an alternative literary avenue to print publications. Some of these outfits include Jalada, Story Moja, Anakara and Chimurenga online magazines and publishers among others. I take note of the significance of the city space as a physical setting for these literary organisations as well as a central theme in the narratives told through these platforms. This article pays special focus on Jalada and Ankara online publications to examine how digital literary platforms have been transformed into an avenue for providing alternative literary structures for contemporary writers. I focus on the city space in these contemporary short stories by analysing the literary outputs from both Jalada and Ankara publishers, arguing that online publications allow for experimentation with language, space, form and style, while further promoting the concept of multimodalities in literary production by the presentation of literature not only in print but in audio, video, drawings, paintings and photographs. This paper aims to argue that the centrality of digital publishing alternatives in contemporary African literature has significantly contributed in pushing the boundaries of literature, especially the short story genre, beyond the definitions set out by major institutions of canon formation.