African writers get a new rostrum in the Lagos Literary and Arts Journal

LONDON, UK — January 15, 2007 — African writers are becoming severely endangered. Primarily there is little market for their work at home because of
ambient low purchasing power. Secondly there is little market abroad, because the West does not understand their writing. The emerging writers are realising the futility of trying to develop their skills; and even the established ones are running out of places willing to publish their output. It may appear that in the space of another decade or two, if care is nottaken, the African creative writer will have been frustrated out of existence . But an alternative rostrum has now been developed on the pages of lagosliteraryjournal.com.<p>

Rotimi Ogunjobi, London-based Publisher of Lagos Literary and Arts Journal explains, " There are thousands of writing creative talents in Africa quite
worth listening to but having nowhere to stand. One problem is that there is a dearth of local publishers who will enable them develop their skills . They
seriously can't hope to make any impact abroad either because the opportunity just doesn't exist. There is a severe cultural gulf and the typical Western
consumer of literature has no idea where the typical African writer is coming from. The typical Western reader will need to find another African to explain
an African story even if it is written in the finest English or French - the cultural background is almost completely alien. But emerging African writers
need to be heard anyway, and we have created a platform for this and also for them to connect with similar minds from all over the world." Rotimi Ogunjobi
adds, "lagosliteraryjournal.com is committed to making sure that creative talents have the opportunity to be discovered; both at home , and also abroad. The internet affords this advantage, because it gives the opportunity of publishing without frontier ."<p>

Yet Lagos Literary and Arts Journal is not about African writing alone. It is a forum for cross-pollination of creative ideas from all over the world and
features a multi-media combination of short fiction, non-fiction, written and performed poetry, reviews, essays, video and audio clips from all over the world<p>

Rotimi Ogunjobi, owner of The Worldwide Review of Literature and The Arts which also publishes three similar journals in Europe and USA concludes, "Ideas
and opinions are important to society. Some help us to grow, some help us to see how far we have fallen. Perennial ideas and opinion are propagated by
writing, and when the opportunity to do this is absent, our societies cease to advance. African literature is sincerely endangered. It has now reached a point now, especially in the UK , that literary agents hang "No African Writer" notices on their door. Of course I can empathise with this attitude. They are in business for the money, and there is no point taking what you can't sell. I think Internet and other forms of electronic publishing will enable
emerging writers to get a foot in the door."<p>

ABOUT LAGOSLITERARYJOURNAL.COM<br>

Lagos Literary and Arts Journal is part of The Worldwide Review of Literature and The Arts, a strategic and creative communications services firm offering a
full range of On-line and print publishing services especially relating to development of literary, music and film skills. This enterprise is owned by Tee Publishing, and based in London; UK<br>