The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has published an anthology of short fiction by 19 emerging writers from 16 countries across Africa and the Caribbean, framing the collection as a commercial investment in intellectual property rather than a conventional cultural project.
Titled Instances of Exceptional Moments of Hunger, the anthology brings together writers who participated in the inaugural CANEX Book Factory Creative Writing Workshop, held over ten days in August 2024 at a resort in Aburi, Ghana. The workshop was run under Afreximbank’s Creative Africa Nexus (CANEX) programme and led by acclaimed novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie through the James and Grace Adichie Foundation, alongside a team of writers and legal and publishing professionals.
The collection was published in partnership with Narrative Landscape Press, the independent publisher co-founded by Eghosa Imasuen with offices in Nairobi and Lagos. It spans multiple languages and cultural traditions, with works translated from Arabic, French and Portuguese into English to reach a wider international readership.
Afreximbank’s Executive Vice President for Intra-African Trade and Export Development, Kanayo Awani, described the project as a pipeline-building exercise, saying it is designed to generate globally competitive intellectual property capable of crossing from literature into film and television formats.
Beyond publication, the bank is using its investment vehicle CANEX Creations Inc., backed by the Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA), to pursue commercial adaptation of selected works across screen and other formats. The anthology has also been submitted for consideration for the Caine Prize for African Writing, one of the continent’s most prominent literary honours.
The project reflects a deliberate shift in how Afreximbank is approaching Africa’s creative industries. Through CANEX, the bank has sought to treat cultural output, including music, fashion, film and now literature, as an export sector capable of generating foreign exchange, creating employment and strengthening Africa’s soft power internationally. Africa’s creative economy is estimated to be worth between $4.2 billion and $5 billion annually, yet it remains significantly undercapitalised relative to its scale.
The anthology’s origins in Ghana give the initiative a specific resonance for the country. Aburi, in the Eastern Region, hosted the inaugural gathering that produced the work, connecting Ghana directly to what Afreximbank is building as a continent-wide literary infrastructure.
