Remediating Romance: Forms and Functions of New Media in Contemporary Love Stories from Togo and South Africa

New media and African literatures are in a constant dialogue. While digital space offers new possibilities for the worldwide circulation of literature, new media formats have become important elements of intermedial writing. This essay analyzes contemporary examples of genre innovation in African romance and chick-lit novels, focusing on the use of new media forms. The concept of remediation serves as a theoretical starting point. Not only does digital space remediate previous media, but the novel in its classical book format remediates new media as well. Through a cross-reading of two novels that rely on a plot of romance—Cunie by the Togolese writer Chris-Edgar Locoh and Now Following You by the South African writer Fiona Snyckers—the forms and functions of new media in the listed texts are examined. This analysis shows that remediation allows for creative, but not necessarily subversive, genre rewriting.