\u2022 In the future you test how far AIs have deviated from the original human personality they were based on?
\n\u2022 Is the old man on the beach an ancient god?<\/p>\n
\u2018The Regression Test\u2019<\/a> (2017) by Wole Talabi (Nigeria\/Malaysia) I\u2019m told that it\u2019s a problem for Irish or Welsh writers too \u2013 the money, the recognition, and the profile all come from publishing in big international venues. And it is only natural for writers to want money, recognition, and profile.<\/p>\n Big international markets have expectations \u2013 about language, about form. Their readers do not include the wretched of the Earth or young scholars in rural Uganda.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to say to what extent an African writer has to pare back her language to be published in the USA or the UK, or if cultural references get avoided or glossed over. Does a writer lose anything at all by not writing particularly for her own country? Is it so difficult to address multiple audiences at once? <\/p>\n Do you end up writing a fiction that your own people are not particularly interested in reading? What will happen to the continental webzines like Omenana<\/em> and Jalada<\/em>? Will the bigger names only offer them fiction that Western publishers have turned down? <\/p>\n Publishers like Cassava Republic and Kachifo are reaching out to readers with more popular or generic fiction. Cassava Republic publishes vivid crime novels such as those by Leye Andele<\/a>. In 2014, Kachifo Ltd founded a new imprint, Breeze Books to publish popular fiction including specifically sci-fi \u2013 though three years later they have not yet published an SF title. Did they get any SFF submissions? Tade Thompson has said (in the online discussions that create the Nommo Awards) that it\u2019s a two-pronged attack \u2013 international recognition on one hand, developing a local market on the other. That is no more or less than a clear statement of the actual situation.<\/p>\n The big SFF publishers in the USA and the UK genuinely want to be diverse. The 2017 Hugo Awards have actively sought participation by Africans. Western publishers want to be able to point to African fiction they have published. Anthologies like this special issue seek out work by African writers. African writers are pushing on an open door when submitting to them. <\/p>\n But a certain amount of cultural cringe by Africans still has to be overcome. Kirsten Hall, a South African editor started a small online African magazine Luminous Worlds<\/em><\/a>. She also works for Beneath Ceaseless Skies<\/em>, a USA based journal. Despite encouraging submissions from Africans, Kirsten did not receive one<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, more SFF by Africans is being published abroad. Chikodili Emelumadu has published in Apex<\/em> and alongside many other Africans in the international horror anthology African Monsters<\/em> (2015) edited by Margr\u00e9t Helgad\u00f3ttir and Jo Thomas. In 2015, Lesley N Arimah published her first SFF piece in The New Yorker<\/em>. Strange Horizons<\/em> republished \u2018Montague\u2019s Last\u2019 by Ekvari Mbvundula. In June 2016 the special double issue of Lightspeed<\/em> magazine was called People of Colour Destroy Science Fiction<\/em> and featured a novella Omoshango<\/em> by Dayo Ntwari. In 2017, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction<\/em> published stories from Wole Talabi (republished here) and \u2018A Green Silk Dress and a Wedding-Death\u2019 by Cat Hellisen. The same magazine has accepted a story \u2018We Are Born\u2019 by Dare Segun Falowo who is based in Lagos. Tade Thompson has been announced for publication on tor.com \u2013 the website that is one of the highest paying markets for SFF. This trend is a swift, significant change to publishing patterns.<\/p>\n Wole Talabi is an influential editor, spokesperson and writer. As The Alchemist, gatekeeping the fiction section of the blog The Naked Convos<\/em>, he published Edwin Okolo, Nerine Dorman and Dare Segun Falawo. Talabi is a distinguished writer. \u2018Wednesday\u2019s Story\u2019, shortlisted for the Nommo Awards, is linked to from our page \u201821 Tomorrow\u2019. That story was also published first in Lightspeed<\/em> magazine. Our list also takes you to Talabi\u2019s fine story of diaspora \u2018A Short History of Migration in Five Fragments of You\u2019, published in Omenana<\/em> issue 3.<\/p>\n \u2018The Regression Test\u2019 does some hardcore world-building, rethinking how walls and furniture and human beings will look in the future. It explains why AIs will never get the air conditioning to the right temperature. Non-Nigerians may not catch the reference to Eko Atlantic where the Test happens \u2013 that\u2019s the real-world land reclamation development nicknamed \u2018The Great Wall of Lagos\u2019. The story is written in Talabi\u2019s customarily clear, beautiful prose. <\/p>\n In contrast to Talabi\u2019s reaching out to an international readership, there is the language issue. <\/p>\n The Jalada collective, led in part by Moses Kilolo and Richard Oduor Oduku have helped revive the aesthetic of writing first in a home or local language and only then translating it into English. This gives people something to read in their home language \u2013 and writers a chance to write in it. Read an interview<\/a> with them about the Language Issue and their SFF anthology Afrofuture(s)<\/em>. <\/p>\n Our page \u201821 tomorrow\u2019<\/a> links to a key story by Richard written first in Duluo and then translated into English as \u2018Tribulations of Seducing a Night Runner\u2019<\/a> preserving the idioms and repetitions. This more highly flavoured English is for me one of the payoffs of writing first in local languages. The page also links the crucial short story by one of Africa\u2019s greatest writers, Ngugi wa Thiong\u2019o. His story in Gikuyu is at the core of Jalada\u2019s Translation Issue.<\/p>\n Masimba Musodza is the author of a 400-plus page SF novel in ChiShona, Munahacha Na\u00efve Nei?<\/em> (2014). In English translation the title means ‘What was in the River?’ It\u2019s about genetic experiments unleashing a giant predatory fish into a Zimbabwean river that is thought to be a traditional entity. Masimba found that people wondered if he\u2019d have problems finding words in ChiShona for technological and other scientific terms. Instead, Masimba found it easy \u2013 even the stars and planets have traditional names in ChiShona. Venus had two. Read an interview<\/a> with Masimba about his work. <\/p>\n Another novel in ChiShona by Musodza was published on his blog as Herbert Anoda Kudzoka Kumusha<\/em>. We publish an excerpt from it, and alongside it published for the first time, a new English translation of the excerpt called \u2018Herbert Wants to Return Home.\u2019 <\/p>\n The title embodies the yearning of emigrants for home, and the pain when they return \u2013 diaspora hybridizes you. In this story, Herbert has been Europeanized enough to return as a predator.<\/p>\n The story also deals with another theme of some African fiction \u2013 the disruption to mourning caused by cultural change. For example, in her collection An Elegy for Easterly<\/em>, another Zimbabwean writer, Petina Gappah includes stories about colonialism or diaspora changing how people mourn. <\/p>\n Finally our own contribution to publishing internationally, a new bonus story from a writer getting his first publication in the West. Kofi Nyameye examples not only his own clear beautiful prose style, but also again the key role played by blogs in nurturing talent. <\/p>\n As Nyameye Dwomo-Anokye he was first published by none other than Wole Talabi under Talabi\u2019s nom-d\u2019editeur The Alchemist in the blog The Naked Convos<\/em>. <\/p>\n For me Nyameye\u2019s story embodies something I\u2019ve noticed in both East and West African cultures \u2013 beliefs don\u2019t contradict each other but are held alongside each other as different kinds of truth. Christianity co-exists within the same person alongside traditional beliefs and a scientific view of the world. The same events are explained by the same person using these very different cosmologies. Some Westerners reading this story will want to know what exists in the real world \u2013 what is really going on \u2013 I did \u2013 and they may feel that some things are left unclear, difficult to see. The answer is that, once you\u2019ve gone through the possibilities, very different actual events could be occurring depending on how you read the story \u2013 depending on your beliefs. That is deliberate. <\/p>\n I am reminded of Jennifer Nansubaga Makumbi\u2019s novel Kintu<\/em><\/a>, in which there both is and is not a curse on a clan. It is both inherited schizophrenia and\/or something magically imposed. You decide. <\/p>\n Kofi\u2019s story has something of the same ambiguity. Plus, it mentions Cthulhu. HP Lovecraft in Africa?<\/p>\n
\n‘Herbert Anoda Kudzoka Kumusha<\/a>\/Herbert Wants to Return Home’<\/a> (2017) by
\nMasimba Musodza (Zimbabwe\/UK)
\nBonus new story<\/strong>: \u2018The Old Man with The Third Hand\u2019<\/a> 2017 by Kofi Nyameye (Ghana)<\/p>\n
\n What will happen to local publishing initiatives if both literary and genre writers appear to regard publication first in the West as validation? <\/p>\nAdditional material<\/h5>\n