The Self is the origin of Selves. 

Selves: An Afro Anthology of Creative Nonfiction was born out of the idea that we needed a narrative nonfiction anthology which would speak to people in the same way that good fiction can. The genre used to be overlooked, so that it was hard to find a collection of nonfiction by African writers in a calendar year. Due to this, our team aimed to redress this imbalance by putting together a biennial collection of provocative and personal essays by African writers.

This inaugural year, because our theme revolves around phenomena formerly undiscussed by African writers, we have nonfiction pieces that speak from a passionate place, unafraid of consequences, revealing even to the point of shame. Essays that pry open personal Pandora boxes, revealing the secrets imprisoned beyond mental bars. Essays that hold the potential for personal healing even as personal hurts are replayed on the page.

Franz Kafka, himself a representative of the global and individual selves, must have been thinking of a collection like this when he wrote, “Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.” This anthology is our truth: a passage, a plural to lived experience, our way of showing, telling and breathing. It mirrors our journeys as human beings.

I want to thank the contributors for believing in this project and for their patience. I want to thank my team for making this project a success. Thank you: Uzoma Ihejirika, Jennifer Emelife, Tope Akintayo, Emmanuel Dairo. Thank you, Otosirieze Obi-Young. Thank you, Modupe Baba and Petra Akinti Onyegbule, for your support and kindness.

I wish to welcome our readers to this collection with the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The beauty of all literature, Fitzgerald wrote, is that, “You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone.” Our anthology, Selves, is a circuit of shared inwardness.

— Basit Jamiu, Lokoja, February 2018