In 2021, we launched our editorial fellowship, the first of its kind on the African continent, to remarkable success, and so we are delighted to announce a call for the 2023-2024 Rajat Neogy Editorial Fellowship. At A Long House, we think of Blackness, through art, literature, and critical thinking as a form of long memory. We are excited to be working within and alongside a resurgence of creative and young people-led digital platforms across the African diaspora. Writing is a solitary practice but publishing is not. Literature that goes through any kind of institutional process is usually the result of multiple eyes looking over, working on, and producing what eventually becomes the finished material that the public engages with. 

Today, in Africa, after almost a century of modern literature as we know it, the continent has produced many solitary stars (which, in some quarters is a measure of success) but there are still a lot of lapses in the structure that produces said literature. One of the more obvious lapses is a deficit of an editorial ecosystem (though a lot of young people continue to selflessly peer-read and support each other). This is what guides our impulse in creating a fellowship geared towards fostering editorial talent on the continent.

In creating this fellowship, we asked ourselves what tradition we could follow to indicate the continuation of a lineage—someone whose work, though not much talked about, changed the trajectory and development of literature on the continent—and we immediately thought of the great Rajat Neogy, who founded Transition when he was just 22, and for years labored selflessly, curating and publishing the best minds on the continent—Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ama Ata Aidoo, Bessie Head, Ezekiel Mphahlele. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o et al,—sometimes for the very first time. It became immediately clear to us that this was a way to honor his work, dedication and memory. Transition as an institution (now domiciled at Harvard) alongside Rajat Neogy’s family have agreed with us that this is an important history that needs to be preserved. 

We hereby announce a call for the 2023-2024 Rajat Neogy Editorial Fellowship at A Long House.

Here’s how it will work:

1. There will be an open call from April 5th – 20th, 2023 for applications to be considered.
2. Fellows for the 2023/2024 tenure will be announced in May 2023.
3. There will be a $1000 award for the fellowship, a tote bag of books, and a mentorship package with select authors. Last year mentor was Maaza Mengiste.
4. Fellows will work with A Long House throughout the one year tenure of the fellowship.

Eligibility

1. Only persons between 18 – 35 years will be considered for the fellowship.
2. Fellow must be an African resident on the African continent.
3. To be eligible, fellow must demonstrate a deep interest in African literature and the ecosystems that nurture it.
4. We encourage applications across the multiple intersections of gender and sexuality.

Responsibilities of the Fellow

1. Work with founding editors on editing works of contributors.
2. Manage communication with contributors.
3. Oversee publication schedule and curate a newsletter. 
4. Reach out to/suggest new contributors.
5. Work with founding editors on themed issues.
6. Work with A Long House team on the Long Talk series.

How to submit

To apply, please upload a motivation letter of not more than 500 words, alongside your CV together as a single pdf on Submittable. 

The deadline for applications is April 25th 2023.We will announce the fellows by May, 2023. 

Please feel free to write us alh@alonghouse.com if you have any questions, but do not send your submissions to the email.