Matatu (journal)

Matatu: Journal for African Literary and Cultural Studies is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal published by Brill Publishers. It focusses on African literary and cultural studies. The journal's name derives from the East African public transport vehicle "Matatu".^[1]

Matatu

Discipline	African literature, African studies
Language	English
Edited by	Tanaka Chidora, Pauline Mateveke Kazembe, Magdalena Pfalzgraf, Aderemi Raji-Oyelade, Frank Schulze-Engler, Alex Nelungo Wanjala
Publication details
Former name	Matatu
History	1987–present
Publisher	Brill Publishers
Frequency	Biannually
Open access	Hybrid
Standard abbreviations ISO 4 (alt) · Bluebook (alt) NLM (alt) · MathSciNet (alt )
ISO 4	Matatu
Indexing CODEN (alt · alt2) · JSTOR (alt) · LCCN (alt) MIAR · NLM (alt) · Scopus · W&L
ISSN	0932-9714 (print) 1875-7421 (web)
LCCN	93642938
OCLC no.	51333248
Links
Journal homepage

The editors-in-chief are Tanaka Chidora (University of Malawi), Pauline Mateveke Kazembe (University of Zimbabwe), Magdalena Pfalzgraf (University of Bonn), Aderemi Raji-Oyelade (University of Ibadan), Frank Schulze–Engler (Goethe University Frankfurt), and Alex Nelungo Wanjala (University of Nairobi).

History

Originally, the journal was self-published by founding editor Holger Ehling and later published by Éditions Rodopi. It then was converted to a book series, with, amongst others, Gordon Collier, Geoffrey V. Davis†, Aderemi Raji-Oyelade, and Frank Schulze-Engler as series editors. In 2016, after Éditions Rodopi was acquired by Brill Publishers, the journal again became a periodical, initially subtitled Journal for African Culture and Society.^[2] Since then, the editorial team was expanded and subsequently the subtitle was changed to underline the journal's contributions to literary studies and since 2025 it is subtitled Journal for African Literary and Cultural Studies.

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is abstracted and indexed in International Bibliography of Periodical Literature,^[3] Modern Language Association Database,^[3] and Scopus.^[4]