The Journal of New African Literature and Arts (JONALA) was one of the important early interdisciplinary journals in African literary and cultural studies. Published in the 1960s and 1970s, it provided a platform for criticism, creative work, and cultural commentary at a time when African literatures were establishing themselves as a distinct field of study. The journal brought together writers, critics, and artists engaging with the new cultural formations of independent African nations.
Six volumes of the journal are catalogued here, covering nine issue numbers: the first (Spring 1966), the third (Spring 1967), the fourth (Fall 1967), the combined fifth and sixth (1968), and the combined ninth and tenth and eleventh and twelfth, both published in September 1971.
Alongside them are the three book anthologies Okpaku drew from the journal, published as New African Literature and the Arts. The first two were issued in 1970 by Thomas Y. Crowell of New York — Volume I in association with The Third Press, Volume 2 as an Apollo Edition paperback — with copyright in both cases held by the journal itself. By Volume III in 1973 The Third Press was publishing the series on its own account. Volume I even reuses the journal’s third-issue cover, Hezbon Owiti’s linocut Goddess of Animals.
