MetaJozi: Writing With and Against Generative AI

In September 2024, a handful of novelists, poets, academics, and scholars gathered at the Johannesburg Institute of Advanced Study (JIAS) to ponder the implications of artificial intelligence for creative writing. What you hold in your hand is a collection of creative and reflective work that explores each writer’s perspective on writing with and against generative AI. The creative work is categorised into prose and poetry, which are thematically connected by unique perspectives of Johannesburg. Each creative piece is accompanied by the writer’s reflection on their process of writing with or against AI, and their impression about its impact on creativity.

This anthology is the first of its kind in South Africa, and we hope that it will cultivate and contribute to important and contentious conversations about the future of critical and creative skills in an aggressively digital age.