Writers Unlimited showcases a new generation of African authors #wu12

There is something special about Africa. The new generation of writers from Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa walking around Writers Unlimited is different from their parents in the world. Or, indeed, the fact that they interact with it in a completely different way, with those ancestors, defines them as something completely new. They present themselves as confident, modern global citizens.

Helon Habili, award-winning author from Nigeria, said it during the opening night: as an African writer, he still regularly had to explain to publishers in the west why he didn't talk about folk tales and escaping poverty and legends, in short, why he didn't write an 'african novel'. His answer: I prefer to write about the world I live in, and not the legend that the west likes to make of it.

On Saturday 21 January, a number of writers from Africa gathered at the Dakota theatre, a new cultural centre in the south of The Hague, for a 'meet and greet' with local residents, most of them from Africa themselves. What was on show there: a new self-awareness of a society developing its own ientity in the 50 years since the end of colonialism.

They live in a dynamic society, which is changing faster and more radically than we in the West realise. China, India and Brazil may be becoming the new superpowers, but Africa is already poised to take over.