African literary journals have been created with the desire to create a space for voices from all over Africa and the African diaspora, spaces specifically designed for those voices. The desire is to make African literary work accessible and visible, while also sparking curiosity. The emergence of these journals and reading about them in the NYT article sparked a connection with the "features of a good book about Africa" document as well as the article we read, "How not to talk about African fiction." The former points us towards books/fiction that tell complex, nuanced stories about the lived experiences of people in concrete places, rather than generic, stereotypical stories with flat characters. The latter highlights the ways African fiction has been mined for socio-cultural or historical information rather than being seen as literary works of art and all that entails. The flourishing of literary journals by African writers for African writers can help counteract some of these tendencies and distorted frameworks. 

The challenges for these journals can similar to the challenges for other literary journals in terms of funding, but they also face the challenge of high turnover if their talented staff/founders move on to more prestigious positions or other organizations.