Callaloo is the leading and longest continuously published journal dedicated to African Diaspora arts and letters. Published quarterly, it presents fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, scholarly articles, book reviews, interviews, and visual art from writers and artists across the globe. Through its pages and programs, Callaloo remains a vital site of contemporary literary and cultural exchange.



Founded in 1976 by Dr. Charles H. Rowell at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Callaloo was established as a rigorous literary forum for Black Southern writers historically excluded from publishing and critical discourse. Under Rowell’s exacting editorial vision, the journal swiftly evolved into an internationally preeminent publication devoted to the arts and humanities of the African Diaspora, encompassing voices from the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Distinguished by both its intellectual seriousness and its uncompromising standards, Callaloo has introduced and sustained the work of some of the most consequential writers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, including future Pulitzer Prize winners and Poets Laureate such as Rita Dove, Natasha Trethewey, and Yusef Komunyakaa. Widely regarded as the leading and longest continuously published journal in African American and African Diaspora studies, Callaloo remains committed to its founding mandate: to provide an enduring space for Black literary and critical expression, irrespective of prevailing cultural currents.