African Literary Metadata

Two new datasets: Staffrider and Lawino magazines

We have published two new datasets on our Zenodo platform that will interest anyone working on print and online literary magazines. The classic anti-apartheid South African magazine Staffrider includes around 1770 individual texts and was published between 1978 to 1993, while the Ugandan-based Lawino content is much more recent (2014-2015). All our datasets are published under a Creative Commons 4.0 licence, which means you can download and reuse our data for your own purposes.

Harris, Ashleigh. ‘Literary Content in Staffrider Magazine’. Zenodo, 27 August 2025. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16965141.

2026-06-24

Postdoc News: Gloria Ajami Makokha works with the British Institute in Eastern Africa

Read the BIEA’s recent blog on this collaboration.

2026-06-24

New dataset: Two Tone Magazine, Zimbabwe

This dataset covers poems published in Two Tone magazine from its first volume in 1964 to its final issue in September 1982. Two Tone was founded by Phillippa Berlyn and Olive Robertson and was published by the National Arts Foundation of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and the Department of English at University of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. An interesting aspect…

2026-05-05

Messy Data, Ephemeral Literatures, and the Future African Archive, Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen, 6 May 2026

Ashleigh Harris will present ALMEDA’s work with ‘Messy Data’ at the Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen at 15:00 on 6 May 2026. Abstract: A significant portion of African Literature and expressive cultures – from the late 19th century to the present – has been produced as print, audio, video,…

2026-03-29

Linked Open Data and the Future of the African Literary Archive, Campus Condorcet, Paris and Online, 10 April 14:00-16:00 CET.

Join us for a talk by Ashleigh Harris on the ways in which the ALMEDA project uses Linked Open Data and the Semantic Web to create sustainable data on African Literature and expressive culture.