Chronicling Beyond Abyssinia: African Writing in Flanders, Belgium

While neighbouring regions boast more established traditions of Euro-
African creative writing, Flanders, Belgium's Dutch-speaking region,
has only just begun to see publications by authors of African origin. The
author endeavours to account for this relatively late emergence of Flemish-
African writing by examining the publishing circumstances in
Flanders. While mainly non-fiction was published initially, recently established
writing contests and short-story collections dedicated to new
talent are encouraging 'new Flemings', especially young women of
Moroccan descent, to venture onto the Flemish literary scene. Special
attention is paid to the milestone event of the 2005 publication of Chika
Unigwe's De Feniks, the first book-length work of fiction by an African
author in Flanders.