A New Generation of Historical Epics

A new generation of African women writers are taking on the task of narrating their histories and imagining their futures. For the Christian Science Monitor, Ryan Lenora Brown delves into the ways these writers are rewriting the historical epic. “This is a generation [of African writers] that isn’t just writing about colonialism and postcolonialism, or just looking at African governance and its failures,” says Petina Gappah, a Zimbabwean writer and author of the novel, Out of Darkness, Shining Light. “We write history. We write romance. We write science fiction. In this generation we have gained the freedom to write about the things that American and European authors write about, which is to say anything we choose.”