Another year, another cycle of bringing you the best African speculative fiction we can find begins.
We are now 11 editions in, and each opportunity to produce a new edition of Omenana still feels like a new experience.
But the road to Omenana 11 was not easy. There was a time, after Omenana 10, when the thought of how we would continue the magazine filled us with trepidation, but here we are. We can never be grateful enough to Zimbabwean writer Tendai Huchu, whose timely support by gifting us his Nommo Award win smoothed out many of this edition’s rough patches.
Tendai’s support proved to be a great catalyst as it was followed by a grant from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America to run Omenana for one year. What can we say except thank you.
For this edition, as is our style, we are offering diverse themes from writers from across the continent. From mud dolls willed to life by magic, to science fiction that will give you a glimpse of the afterlife in the not too far future, and a young girl in Kenya forced to shoulder the burdens of her people – scapegoat-style. These diverse stories speak of a talent to spin tales that awe, shock, and inspire. These tales, which the African child first caught whiff of sitting by the feet of their mothers, and then repeated blemished versions of to their siblings and peers, these are the ones we set up Omenana to showcase.
Beyond the usual issues of time and manpower, we are ready to continue to offer you the best speculative fiction from writers from Africa and the African Diaspora that we can find. We will produce all the editions planned for 2018, and then we will look to 2019 – and to doing it all over again.
The ride has taken off, feel free to join us.
Mazi Nwonwu