10 reasons WSA should be on your to-read list

There are several things that make a literary magazine dear to a fan’s heart. Writers Space Africa magazine has some of these.   Writers Space Africa (WSA) is a monthly literary magazine that features a wide variety of attractions from across the continent. These include short stories, poetry, essays, conversations and photography, among others. Here, […]

There are several things that make a literary magazine dear to a fan’s heart. Writers Space Africa magazine has some of these.

 

Writers Space Africa (WSA) is a monthly literary magazine that features a wide variety of attractions from across the continent. These include short stories, poetry, essays, conversations and photography, among others. Here, Bookshelf gives 5 reasons why it’s a must-read.

Personalities

Every edition of WSA showcases intriguing personalities. This September it’s Zimbabwe’s Kimberly Chirodzero (aka Queen Kim) who grew up in a house “full of avid readers and storytellers.” So, writing provided an opportunity for her “to create new worlds.”

The platform has also featured other writers on its cover, such as Tanzania’s Nahida Esmail, who was spurred to write by a lack of storybooks (written by and for Tanzanian) for her daughter. Today, she is an award-winning author of four Young Adult (YA) novels and ten children’s picture books, three of which have been translated into Swahili and one into Maa, the language of the Maasai. Her YA novels, ‘Living in the Shade’, ‘Lesslie the City Maasai’, ‘Detectives of Shangani’, and ‘Living in the Shade: Aiming for the Summit’, have all received CODE’s Burt Award for African Literature. In 2015 she was honoured with the Tanzania Women’s Achievement Award in the education category.

Poetry

There’s a little bit of everything in this magazine, and one of these is poetry. Nigeria’s Walter Bassey Archibong’s ‘African Beauty’ is not in praise of the continent, but rather, x-rays the failures of its children. It reads in part:

In their quest for beauty,

Some have traded beauty for ashes.

Some have slimed their true splendour

In the gloss of the world’s view of lulu.

Many have subjected themselves

To surgical knives, adjusted and twisted

This in order to look like that,

Just to feel fit for the faux of worldly beauty.

Others in this September issue include Sakor Inusah Musah’s (Ghana) ‘Sorcery at the King’s Girl’ and Isaac Kilibwa’s (Kenya) ‘Be-hold Afreeka’.

Short Stories

There are short stories and flash fiction (of course!). So, you may want to read ‘Dark Messiah’ by Philani Amadeus Nyoni (Zimbabwe), an emotional tale that begins with a mother and her dying child. Will he live to become what she dreams, or will he float to the afterlife?

Other stories are Boluwatife Promise Oyediran’s ‘The Days of Unhappiness’. Written in the second person, it begins with a first sentence that makes one stay glued:

“Birthdays are stupid days meant for the harvesting of a year’s unhappiness,” you said to me the day before your birthday, as we snailed home, choking on mouthfuls of boiled corn.

Essays

Meaza Aklilu Hadera in ‘Ashenda/Shadey/Solel’ writes about her country, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. She points out that “Most of the world imagines that Africa gives the least of freedom towards its females. Africa is known for under-age marriage and gender-based violence among other things. This might be somewhat true, but Africa is not the worst continent for girls.” To buttress this point, she talks about a festival made for girls onl, called ‘Ashenda’.

There is more. In ‘The Meaning of Africa’, Kenya’s Edith Adhiambo Osiro focuses on how people from different parts of the continent greet or speak. This writer does it with such a flow of language that makes reading his piece enjoyable. Perhaps you haven’t been to Africa or experienced life outside your country of origin? Osiro’s here to let you in on secrets you didn’t know existed.

Art

It’s an electronic magazine and also free online. WSA is a mixture of different art forms, from photographs to paintings. Art is the essence, even its layout seems to say. And there’s so much more.