Africa39 Read Free

fortuitous timing in this instance, with a universal celebration of the release of creative plurality, augurs well for the future, yet it is fraught with danger from an implacable enemy – a religious fundamentalist onslaught on human freedom. Emerging from the shadow of the Berlin Wall was no easy task for many African writers of that age who, in contesting colonialism and then confronting internal social malformations through their writing, seeking new forms and playing variations on the old, literally fought with one arm tied behind their back, or willingly underwent a version of critical lobotomy from the scalpel of doctrine at the most productive phase of their career. Some eventually recovered; others never! Much talent was suppressed, bullied and harried during that period of doctrinal obsession. It was a crime against literature, art and creativity. Restraint on that faculty we recognise as human imagination leads inevitably to raging crimes against humanity itself – a sequence that is amply, repetitively demonstrated throughout the history of the world: first a crime against creativity, next, crimes against humanity. It is a hard lesson learnt – it is not possible to be against creativity and hope to end up on the side of humanity. That attestation is tragically enshrined in the nation’s latest contribution to world vocabulary – Boko Haram – and its transborder, power-driven conspiracies against the creative mandate.
    The primary function of literature is to capture and expand reality. It is futile therefore to attempt to circumscribe African creative territory, least of all by conformism to any literary ideology that then aspires to be the tail that wags the dog. Literature derives from, reflects and reflects upon – Life. It projects its enhanced vision of Life’s potential, its possibilities, narrates its triumphs and failures. Its offerings include empowerment of the oppressed and the subjugation of power. It will not attempt to do all of this at once – that will only clot up the very passages of its own proceeding. There is infinitude to the nature of Literature, but attempts to curtail or dictate to its protean propositions often strike me as a simultaneous exercise in attempted parricide and infanticide in one stroke. There is only one universal literary ideology that answers human cruelties, the excesses of power, bigotries, social inequalities and alienation: Literature . On behalf of a pursuit that lures generation after generation to partake of its sumptuous banquet of creative splendours – Welcome, Africa39 !
     
    Wole Soyinka
    Lagos, May 2014

Editor’s Note
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    When we reject the single story, when we realise that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise .
    â€“ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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    The writers featured in this anthology were chosen following intensive research by Binyavanga Wainaina, writer and founder of one of the continent’s most inspiring literary journals, Kwani? . Following a public call out for recommendations and the work of judges Elechi Amadi, Margaret Busby and Osonye Onwueme – who had the difficult task of selecting just thirty-nine writers out of this pool of outstanding talent – Africa39 is a celebration of writers whose work promises to inspire readers for decades to come.
    In the months it has taken to bring the collection together, I have found myself immersed in texts by and conversations with some writers whose works I already knew well; others I had heard of but not yet read; and a few who were entirely new discoveries. As a reader, my horizon is broadened especially by the inclusion of works in translation from Equatorial Guinea and Cape Verde. It is my fervent hope that the stories chosen to appear here will give readers that same gift – the satisfaction of new work by familiar, beloved voices, the joy of discovering the new.
    Although thirty-nine writers, representing sixteen