Jalada Africa to explore ‘afterlife’ in sixth anthology

Jalada Africa, an online literary magazine, is calling for works that interrogate questions about the afterlife for its anthology’s 6th edition. The submissions can be fiction, poetry, prose and visual art on all aspects of the phenomenon, covering themes as varied as recent global events to philosophical and fantastical treatments of the subject. The questions […]

Jalada Africa, an online literary magazine, is calling for works that interrogate questions about the afterlife for its anthology’s 6th edition. The submissions can be fiction, poetry, prose and visual art on all aspects of the phenomenon, covering themes as varied as recent global events to philosophical and fantastical treatments of the subject.

The questions revolve around these: “what of the afterlife experienced by the dead in contrast with the subjective observation of the living? Could a dead being enjoy a blissful existence days after death where the living on-looker sees a decomposing corpse?”

Also, “is it possible that the physical circumstances of decomposition can pass for a kind of afterlife, in which the dead is transformed for the benefit of other life forms? What about dead plants and animals? Do they have a consciousness? And what happens to language?”

Jalada Africa is a pan-African writers’ collective. Its aim is to publish literature by African authors regularly by making it as easy as possible for any member to publish anything or execute any literary project as quickly and effectively as possible.

Jalada’s first project was an anthology of short stories, loosely themed around insanity, published in January 2014. The second, the sex anthology, was published in June 2014. Jalada 02: Afrofuture(s), published in January 2015, is a collection of short stories and poems centred on the genres of Afrofuturism and AfroSF. Their most recent anthology is a collaborative project with Writivism, an initiative by CACE, a non-governmental organization in Uganda. The anthology featured fiction from exciting young writers from the 2014 mentorship program carried out in five African cities.

Deadline for submissions of this 6th edition is June 5.