At 20.35 Africa, we seek to build towards the future of African letters that our readers, contributors, and staff deserve—one that uplifts living African poets from all over the continent and abroad. 20.35 Africa believes that because there is no singular African aesthetic, its ever-growing Anthology, Conversations, and New Poets series continuously imagine and reimagine what voices from the diaspora and the continent have to contribute to the literary conversation.
In 2017, our founder, Ebenezer Agu, conceived of the Anthology series (the first of the other series) as a means to dispel the myth that only one or a handful of living African poets can be visible at a time. By creating a space to also nurture emerging voices, and voices from parts of Africa that are not often highlighted, 20.35 Africa stands as a home for a robust conversation and approach to literature. As we move into our fourth year, we turn to you—our readers and supports—to donate to our fundraiser. We now seek to be a paying market.
Your generous contributions will allow us to pay the contributors to our current series, our staff, and cover our administrative cost. We also plan to unroll the 20.35 Africa Mentorship Program this year, which, like our New Poets series, is targeted at young African poets living in Africa. This mentorship program will not just create an opportunity for craft development, it will also be the first step in our plan to create a wide networking system for African poets, wherever they may be in the world and across their different ages and career levels.
The other half of this home is you and we hope you will help us continue building into the future with your contributions.
Your donations go towards the community first and foremost.
As we seek to expand our operation, our top priority is to be a paying market, meaning we want to encourage the careers of emerging African writers by paying them for their labor. At 20.35 Africa, we believe it is vital to compensate writers because that is how art is sustained. With your help, we are working with precision to grant every single one of our contributors an honorarium. We also want to be clear that we seek to establish a sustained means of funds through a combination of other avenues such as grant-writing.
A breakdown of your donations:
· Your $50 donation pays for the annual maintenance of our website.
· Your $75 donation pays a contributor for their poems.
· Your $100 donation pays one contributor in the Conversations series.
· Your $150 donation pays one guest editor in the Anthology series.
· Your $200 donation pays for one unit in our overall administrative cost.
· Your $300 donation pays a facilitator in our prospective Mentorship Program.
· Donating more makes it easier for us to reach our goal!
Join Our Community!
Finally, without you, 20.35 Africa cannot flourish. We want to thank you in advance for supporting living African poets and the pursuit of crafting a new contemporary voice, a collection of voices. Our anthologies are free and open to the public for consumption. Your generosity and continuous support make all of this possible.