Stephen Embleton's Blog, page 5
May 8, 2023
Book Cover Design: Madness
"Madness" by Esomnofu Ebelenna (2023)
Taking a photograph by Susan Wilkinson, adding the floral silkscreen motif and superimposing the custom stamped typographic design, I wanted something soft (fabric) yet course in its texture (linen) and grey rather than warm. Unsettling. And taking this further with the misaligned text of the back cover.
Full cover: "Madness" by Esomnofu Ebelenna (2023)
April 5, 2023
Book Cover Design: Yamtarawala, the Warrior King
"Yamtarawala, the Warrior King" by Henry Akubuiro (2023) – watercolour/digitalAfter researching the events and era of the play's events, I felt a simple yet dramatic illustration would be best. Using splashed and dripping paint as blood, I morphed those into flowers (also featured in the inner layout) and the elongated spears of the warriors of the time. Amongst the "chaos" I featured the imagined profile of the bearded warrior king.
Full cover: "Yamtarawala, the Warrior King" by Henry Akubuiro (2023)Some of the reference images.
March 21, 2023
"The Lake Goddess" Released March 2023
It was a proud day to celebrate the release of this wonderful, and enigmatic book: The Lake Goddess. Until now, only published in Nigeria, I wanted to celebrate the work of Flora Nwapa and publish this posthumous book to a wider audience. I had the privilege of not only editing the book (with my Editor's Introduction) but also designed the cover.
Rather than depicting any perceived dark and mysterious theme, and the legendary figure of Ogbuide (the Lake Goddess herself), I wanted to reflect the vibrancy of the story's real-world lake region of Oguta as well as the people and their traditions.
Paperback (Feb/March 2023)
20 March 2023: I spent the day with Ejine Nzeribe, showing her damp Oxford, talking about her mother Flora Nwapa, and Flora’s novel, The Lake Goddess, which we published in the UK this month 📖 and ending with some ugba (oil bean seed) from Ona Nwelue ❤️🌶️
Read my Editor's Introduction to the new edition below...
Ugba (oil bean seeds)
Ejine Nzeribe and Stephen
Ejine Nzeribe (left), Stephen, Ona Nwelue (right)
Editor's Introduction:
“Ogbuide wants every woman to have a voice.”
It has been a privilege to work with Flora Nwapa’s family — her three children, Ejine Nzeribe, Amede Nzeribe, and Uzoma Nwakuche — and seeing their commitment to their mother’s legacy, ensuring it is kept alive in a world, which will always yearn for the magic of Ogbuide, The Lake Goddess. The Lake Goddess is a testament to the power of traditions, beliefs and heritage, in a world quick to minimise the importance of cosmologies, of the eons of ancestors trying to make sense of the world around them, and calling on something greater than themselves for guidance.
I wanted to have an understanding of who Flora Nwapa was, and continues to be, for three individuals who have remained steadfast custodians of their mother’s work, and in particular, the bold task of having posthumously published The Lake Goddess in 2019, decades after her passing. Thirty years is a long time, but just below the surface reside the memories of their lives together, hints at where Flora Nwapa was in her own life when she wrapped up the manuscript for The Lake Goddess, and the day-to-day lives not often spoken of, when The Lake Goddess is very much that – the day-to- day lives of a community rationalising the old and the new. For Ejine and I, our first face-to-face meeting in Lagos in 2022 was an emotional one: speaking of mothers and who they are to us, being brought up by them and growing up to see who they are in our world, and to the rest of the world. Ejine shared the turmoil of the political climate as a girl and her profound experiences of her mother, and remarkably, the direct experience of The Lake Goddess herself when forced to leave their old lives and home behind. And we are indebted to Obioma Nnaemeka, who edited the version that we are publishing.
As the first woman published under the original African Writers Series, Flora Nwapa’s Efuru was bold in its approach and representation of her world and worldview. To me, The Lake Goddess is even bolder. It was a pleasant surprise to read the connection to Efuru within the narrative, tying her first novel to her final work. Flora Nwapa’s characters face the world head on and express their views, with few grey areas. They argue, as I imagine Flora Nwapa did within herself, or in conversations with others, for a changing world to better understand how they function on tradition versus new ideas, and the strength in the feminine aspect of society and beliefs, revealing a deeper thread of higher power within us all.
Stephen Embleton
Editor
Oxford, December 2022
The Lake Goddess by Flora Nwapa (2023 Edition)
Paperback (Feb/March 2023)Ejine gifted me a copy of two of Flora Nwapa's plays recently published in Nigeria:
February 3, 2023
Review: The James Currey Anthology
Eugen Bacon's review of the James Currey Anthology features in Aurealis Magazine #157 (Australia) in February 2023.
The Review in full here:
Review by Eugen Bacon
This unique anthology of everything African comes in two parts: short stories and creative essays. Editor Stephen Embleton, himself award-winning as a writer, showcases the diversity of African fiction writing and the intensity of African critical thinking. This book sings voices from the continent on matters of death, dirge, superstition, patriarchy, belonging, and more.
The pertinent miscellany opens with Mbaeze Nnedimma’s darkly twisted ‘Ihekanwa’, the voice of a child on the power of fear and belief a Rubin’s blossom—young and tender, the rarest plant with its properties of healing—belief.
Offering the secret of in a shoebox is N. A. Ntumy’s ‘Don’t Whisper the Secret’ that talks to sickness and
A standout emerges in Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike’s ‘The Story is an Egg, or Five Fragments’ that unravels in mindful vignettes, stories within a story, rich with African naming and the storytelling tradition of the motherland. Lynn Nyaera stretches out the matriarchal theme in a shrewd story on the lengths a mother will go for her children.
The stories resurrect friendship, family, forbidden love and what else in canny or resourceful characters with innate or learnt skills of survival, sometimes their very existence at stake.
In a mood change, the creative nonfiction pieces skilfully wrap around unsettlement, tribal warfare, the sense of belonging, unbelonging, censorship and age-old matters still affecting African peoples and societies today.
A laudable anthology from true grassroots, paying homage to an academic publisher specialising in African studies. James Currey, co-founder of James Currey publishers, now an imprint of Boydell & Brewer, is sometimes termed ‘The Godfather of African Literary’ for his pioneering of African literature to British and then global attention.
Currey’s well-founded belief remains integral to the rise of Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and other African greats and newer writers today. The James Currey Anthology reminds us this.
January 30, 2023
Soyinka's Memory (Short Story) Published
My latest short story, “Soyinka's Memory”, published in The Shallow Tales Review “MEMORY” #40 January 2023."
On 17 August 2022 I reached out to Professor Wole Soyinka (through Dr Onyeka Nwelue) regarding the early draft of a short story I had written which featured a fictional Wole Soyinka. Within a few hours I received a direct response! I am pleased to share that the short story is now published in The Shallow Tales Review, along with Professor Soyinka’s acknowledgment of the work, below the title. Please note: an acknowledgment is not an endorsement. I also included the rather poignant and apt sentence he wrote in his email to me within the final draft of the short story itself: “My ‘memory’ is under strain.” The rest of the short story is FICTION – in a small part autobiographical, but for the most part it is fiction.
It is magical realism. It expands on an original Jorge Luis Borges short story from 1938, “Shakespeare's Memory”.
The Premise:
A fictional version of myself, Stephen, as a writer, approaches a fictional “Soyinka” via email to ask to be granted the transferral of all “Soyinka’s Memory” to me. Written with myself as narrator in the past tense, reflecting on the events that have occurred, I tell of how “Soyinka” agreed (with a matter-of-fact “Yes” response) and a video chat was set up where he conveyed his own motivations to do so – even after the arrogant “Stephen” considered the possibility of “a degree of tech-illiteracy” (making the weight of the burden to come even more satisfying for the reader). The story is set after much time has passed between the initial “transfer”, where I am overcome with the immensity of such Memories on myself as a writer and individual finding his way in the world. I reflect on that journey, from elation at having a resource like no other, to being overwhelmed by it all. I delve into beliefs around memory (and its harnessing and transferral), as well as the significance on our experiences on the Continent — culturally, politically and personally.
It is set in the same “world” as the original Borges short story, referencing his narrator (Sörgel) and even contains a word count of 3,100 words – similar length to Borges’ story. One odd or coincidental sentence early in Borges’ piece includes this “…who just recently died in Pretoria.” And that was one of the catalysts for me! There is acknowledgment of the original Borges piece in a number of instances, and going so far as to rename Pretoria to Tshwane in my line:
Though I don’t wish my circumstances on anyone, no matter the outcome, it was better than dying in Tshwane. Or dying, generally.
There are many references to Soyinka's works and wealth of knowledge and experiences, as one would expect, particularly if I am to give fictional voice and credibility to the persona of a real man.
Themes:
It revolves around memories (and history), learning from those lived memories, and the importance of those capable/skilled enough to transmit those for the benefit of the world to learn from; in our modern social media world the desire to “acquire” talent and be successful overnight; privilege to the extreme (acquiring the memory of someone else, without any respect for what it means); the arrogance and entitlement of desperation; appreciating our ancestors and elderly, their experiences and knowledge, rather than disrespecting and dismissing them as outdated; decolonising everything including the mind.
January 25, 2023
Interview (and Cover Feature): The Shallow Tales Review Jan 2023
It was a great surprise today to find out I made the cover of the 40th issue of The Shallow Tales Review (out on 31 Jan)! Along with the inclusion of my short story (more to come when published), I had enjoyed being interviewed for the publication by Nzube Nlebedim – talking about my work, South Africa (my childhood and now) and speculative fiction.
"Speculative Fiction and the Magic of African Literature: A Conversation with Stephen Embleton" – The Shallow Tales Review, 31 January 2023
The Table of Contents for Issue #40:
Book Cover Designs (Various)
I have had the pleasure of designing a number of book covers over recent years (two of them my own).
Below are examples of some of them.
(2023) The Lake Goddess by Flora Nwapa (2023 Edition)
(2023) UK Edition of Double Wahala, Double Trouble by Uche Peter Umezurike
(2023) Cover Design for Ikenna Okeh's 2023 (Crime Novel)
(2023) Harmattan by Ivan Sršen (novel)
(2022) The James Currey Anthology
(2021/2022) Bones & Runes Book Cover & Illustrations (Fantasy Novel)
(2020) Soul Searching Novel Design (SF Novel)
December 5, 2022
Anthology Featured in Brittle Paper 100 Notable African Books of 2022
I am so glad, and proud, to have The James Currey Anthology, which I edited, included in the Brittle Paper 100 Notable African Books of 2022 🔥❤️
Congratulations to the 12 contributors whose works made this book what it is.
C. S. Hadebe (South Africa) Bontsi Z. Kennedy, nee Morewane (Botswana)Ifunanya Madufor (Nigeria)Gothataone Moeng (Botswana)Majini Ya Mombasa (Kenya) Nzube Nlebedim (Nigeria) Mbaeze Nnedimma (Nigeria) Cheryl S. Ntumy (Ghana) N. A. Ntumy (Botswana) Lynn Nyaera Onywere (Kenya)Maxine Sibihwana (Uganda)Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike (Nigeria)
#africanliterature
December 2, 2022
TEN QUESTIONS With Stephen Embleton – Published in Aké Review 2022
Aké Review 2022On their 2022 Festival theme of "Homecoming", my Ten Questions and Answers were published in the Aké Review Volume 9.
Read the 10 Questions/Answers here.
Aké Festival 2022 – Lagos
Stephen Discussing the Sauúti CollectiveWhat an absolute adventure attending Aké Arts & Book Festival 2022 in Lagos, Nigeria!
The writing on the wall prompt: I LOVE BOOKS BECAUSE…
“…they build worlds in the minds of the readers that goes beyond what the writer wrote.”
Aké Review 2022
Arrived! At Ake Arts & Book Festival in kind of one piece. 😁❤️Meeting the 2021 Nobel Prize winner, Abdulrazak Gurnah and his lovely wife Denise DeCaires Narain, and so many people I’ve met virtually.
Abdulkareem Baba Aminu
Abdulrazak Gurnah and Denise DeCaires Narain
Wole Talabi
James Murua
Toni Kan
Me!
Day One 🔥❤️
The writing on the wall prompt: I LOVE BOOKS BECAUSE…
“…they build worlds in the minds of the readers that goes beyond what the writer wrote.”
What an awesome panel event at Aké Festival and what a day it was, sharing The Sauúti Collective with everyone and the buzz afterwards 🔥⭐️🔥⭐️
I’m really proud of what our ten-person The Sauúti Collective has achieved so far, and to be representing them at Aké Arts & Book Festival and supported by Syllble is an experience on another level. The feedback continues to inspire us onward and upward. We cannot wait to share it with those of us who were unable to attend but were here in Spirit. 🔥❤️💫
Our Mother Creator (teaser) – The Sauúti Creation Myth
Watch the teaser to the The Sauúti Collective Creation Myth, which we kicked off with for our panel at Ake Arts & Book Festival.
Check out the full panel session on The Sauúti Collective from yesterday at Ake Arts & Book Festival A great experience all around and lovely support from everyone. ❤️💫
YouTube Video (sound issues early on)
So many exciting things happening in Lagos. I met with Ejine Nzeribe, eldest daughter of Flora Nwapa, for exciting literary developments for 2023 ❤️ and Flora Nwapa’s legacy – publishing Flora Nwapa's posthumous novel "The Lake Goddess". 🔥
Stephen & Ejine Nzeribe
For sale
On the shelves
Somto!
Ifeoma
Giving writers their physical contributor copies in person is great! So glad for them to feel their words in their hands and the fruits of their labours seeing the world. Nzube Nlebedim it was great to finally meet and get a chance to chat! ❤️🔥
Cheryl Ntumy
Nzube Nlebedim
