Editorial
With every issue of Omenana, we recommit ourselves to the task of holding space for African imaginations that bend time, twist memory, and summon futures. In this 33rd edition, our contributors once again challenge form, embrace myth, and confront the complex realities that live at the edge of the known.
We open with “The Return” by Jen Thorpe, a story set in a post-apocalyptic world where, with many things from the old world banned or extinct, a couple join the ranks of others who attempt to re-enact ancient ways of family life with the help of a robot. But things go awry when one person shows they’re still human; and selfish.
In Oyelude Jomiloju’s “The Things They Buried With the First Wife”, tradition digs up the past—literally. When a man dies, his young wife is tasked with opening his first wife’s grave so he may be reunited with her. But what happens when the rituals of the old world don’t quite fit the anxieties of the new?
“Drum Call” by Seun Lari-Williams revisits the harrowing myth of the Abiku child—doomed to return again and again through the veil of life and death.
In “Metempsukhōsis” by Chiemeka Akaigwe, a bold and unrepentant Gen Z influencer believes she’s cornered the art of control, until a supernatural reckoning takes her down a path of revelation. It’s a sharp, unsettling look at ambition, technology, and the ghosts that feed on attention.
“Dust and Echoes” by Amani Mosi is an ethereal journey into cultural loss and memory. Here, they stole Africa’s dreams and her songs, and buried them in your sleep; but the time has come for an ancient griot release the secrets and their melody. The result is a story that reads like a ceremony, pulsing with grief and resistance.
Lastly, “Gecko Girl” by Hussani Abdulrahim takes us on a body-horror ride that begins as a childhood game and spirals into a chilling transformation. The titular gecko is no innocent creature, and what it awakens in its host is something wild, primal, and irreversible.
As always, Omenana remains a vessel for stories that defy category and resist erasure. We are proud to showcase writers who understand that speculative fiction is not just the means to escape reality, but one for confrontation, re-imagination, and healing. It is, in many ways, our most urgent form.
We hope you find something here that lingers in your bones.
Mazi Nwonwu
