Issue 18 of the Manchester Review

'This is a collection of damn good stories - plus a complete comic and an excerpt from a film script'. 

Zélie Adebola remembers remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zelie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were targeted and killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope. 

Now, Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.  

Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers—and her growing feelings for the enemy.

We often in art mistake race for colour, and what this taught me was a way to skip past those initial assumptions and get right to the heart of her structure rather than her tone. This meant a lot of research into what physical features are distinctly Nigerian, and bringing those to bear on this young woman. She had to, without leaning on skin colour, be authentically Nigerian and herself as a true native of her culture in every bit as much the same way in which I might need to address and accomplish the same for a Cambodian scientist, or an Icelandic luthier.

Final graphite drawing of 'Akata Witch'. Image via Muddy Colors.

Final graphite drawing of 'Akata Warrior'. Image via Muddy Colors.

For 'Lagoon'. Illustration by Greg Ruth. Image via Muddy Colors.

For 'The Book of Phoenix'. Illustration by Greg Ruth. Image via Muddy Colors.

From 'Who Fears Death'. Illustration by Greg Ruth. Image via Muddy Colors.

Final version of Binti. Illustration by David Palumpo. Image via dvpalumpo.com

Photo via Nnedi Okorafor's Instagram page

It's a truly beautiful thing seeing such striking images of powerful women on the covers of books.


Update: Since publishing the post, Nnedi Okorafor shared the final covers of Akata Witch and Akata Warrior on Twitter, stating that 'last minute juju was applied to the colours & font.' Loving the fun new colours and font - makes the covers even better (and the ones posted earlier were already gorgeous).

Book covers via Nnedi Okorafor's Twitter page

Image from SA edition of Lauren Beukes' Broken Monsters. Designed by Joey Hi-fi. Source: Aidanmoher.com

 ... Africans have been creating their own science fiction for quite some time; only these stories often don't have the elements we have come to expect from the genre. For instance, two icons of African speculative fiction Ben Okri's 1991 novel 'The Famished Road' and 'Wizard of the Crow' by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o in 2006 feature magic and spirits, but neither deals with technology.

You know, I have no memory what kicked it off. I was reading stuff on the African Fantasy Reading Group and just thought 'sod it, we need an award and it will have to be entirely in Africa. Just keep everybody else out, me included. I had just come back from Nairobi and had loved the writers there, their mood of owing so little to everybody else, just growing their own wild sort of beatnik scene. And I was very impressed talking to Moses Kilolo and Richard Oduor Oduku, how they had got Jalada together by talking through all the issues first. So I just start[ed] chatting online with the group, and all those good people who formed the Awards Discussion Group came on board. 

The ASFS helps to unite people like you, Nerine, and Chinelo for example, who have been fighting individually to raise the SFF profile on the continent. I think together we can get more done. 

To me part of the job of the ASFS is to demonstrate that we're here and we're like SFF writers everywhere, to bring fucking quality to the party, and mindpain to the haters! 

                                        - Tade Thompson

An anthology of nominated works. A programme with the French, Arabic, Portuguese and local language worlds. Publications in Luo on one page facing the page of English translation so that local languages can be sold bound in with the English. An expanding awards programme to recognise the outstanding auteur cinema springing up outside and maybe inside Nollywood. A searchable database of published novels, stories, graphic novels. A programme of Wikipedia maintenance to keep everybody's bios and bibliographies available and accurate. Programmes to encourage developing writer. BUT ABOVE ALL ELSE. Developing the audience in terms of both numbers and its expectations. Giving African writers Africans to write for, in genres that are controlled by African readers. So I hope the pros don't leave behind the 1000+ African Readers on Facebook. I hope both groups grow together, readers and writers. They are on the same side. 

                                      - Geoff Ryman

Kamwendo on Tutuola's The Palm Wine Drinkard. Source: Chimurengachronic

' ... these sno-globes were something like our emotions sensations and mental emanations rendered invisible' and Taty was 'not just any sno-globe.' 

'See, when most people are receptors, you are, in fact, a transmitter...' 

'You can be tuned to create specific sensations and emotions within people - just the sight of you playing tennis in the right skirt, if amplified correctly, could be enough to kill a person'. p38

A figure crawled and crept like a gecko along the outer walls of the lifeguard station. It resembled a lanky teenage boy, except that it was possessed of slick, green skin, similar to that of a tree frog. The amphibious resemblance did not end there. The arms and legs of the being were double-, if not triple-jointed and possessed of a rubbery flexibility. An extra elbow and knee joint lent the legs and arms a vague 'z' shape when they flexed. When the creature stopped moving, these limbs folded up like wet origami and it assumed a sickening sort of yogic position, not unlike that of a grasshopper. Another dramatic feature of the thing were its long antennae, which quivered in spasms upon its head. The antennae themselves were gigantic and feathery, like a moth's, fluttering spastically against surfaces. The eyes of the symbiote were disproportionate, bulbous and reflective, Nictitating membranes licked across their surfaces while complex sets of mandibles operated below. Someone had dressed the thing in loud, neon surf shorts, whether for a joke or modesty it was hard to tell. (p85)

The Soft House. © Nikhil Singh

 

'I'm albino and I've known it all my life ... My hair is still light yellow, my skin is still the colour of "sour milk", and my eyes are still light grey-green like God ran out of the right colour. And I still hate the sun, too.'

' ... a wonderfully strong personality. And she happened to be albino. She was paler than most white people and had blonder hair, yet she was as Igbo and nappy-haired as anyone in her family. 

She loved to make jokes and one day she just went off on a diatribe about the discrimination she experiences in Nigeria because she was albino.  After that week, I knew I'd write about her. I'd been kicking around an idea about Nigerian kids and magic and she fit right into the story.'