Jalada Africa, the pan-African writers’ collective and publisher, is seeking entries for its newest anthology with the theme “Resistance.”
Jalada Africa, the pan-African writers’ collective and publisher was born when writers from across the continent converged in Nairobi in 2014. They have since published many critically acclaimed anthologies as a collective and with other organisations. Some of these include AFTER+LIFE, Sketch of a Bald Woman In The Semi-Nude And Other Stories (our review), Sext Me Poems and Stories (our review), Diaspora x DWF, My Maths Teacher Hates Me and Other Stories, Afrofuture (2), The Language Issue. The most recent anthologies have been the Bodies Anthology (2019) and the Nostalgia Anthology (2020).
The collective, which currently has Richard Ali as Managing Editor, has made a call out for their newest anthology with the theme “Resistance.” Below is the call-out in full.
Jalada 10, Resistance: Re-Opened Call-Out
In 2022, the Collective issued a call for its tenth anthology, on the theme of Resistance. At the time, we sensed continental encroachments on the civic space where arts and literature thrive. We desired to create an anthology to speak to this shifting mood and to bear witness.
In the intervening period, even greater upheavals started which speak directly to our theme of resistance: the Kenyan youth protests, the lingering Russia—Ukraine war, as well as the latest outrages surrounding Palestine and the Israeli occupation, and now Lebanon. Israel, again, with Iran, have recently traded missiles. Nigeria, and Kenya, seem in the grips of a cost-of-living crisis set in motion by two governments that style themselves very differently but are similar in the ways they squeeze their citizens. And then, there’s Sudan where the State and the RSF have turned a history-steeped country into an arena of conflict attended by the destruction of heritage. The Congo continues to spasm from internal politics and external meddling, creating a human context where every African life, every day, is both complicit and defiant.
The increasing influence of India, China, and even Turkey in the developing world and its effect on peoples, cultures, and creativity assume urgency considering the US presidential elections, which brought out the worst of both democracies as a way of aggregating consent and the viability of nation-states as the building blocks of international order.
Besides these are a hundred contexts, local and often life-or-death to those directly involved in them, that problematize ideas of agency, proximity and dissidence.
Then there is the personal resistance—the roses growing out of the concrete—where we find bravery at the micro-level, in personal places away from the mainstream and the broad stroke of what becomes historical. Resistance by the people of the commons, the stalwarts of every day trapped in Lubumbashi, Skopje, Baltimore and elsewhere, who draw back and say: “This?? No!”.
These make Jalada’s curating individual, collective and bespoke resistance(s) even more crucial. This necessitates the re-opening of the call-out for Jalada 10. We are particularly interested in visual arts, essays, and interviews as well as poetry, digital art, short stories, and films.
This expanded call will complement the fantastic submissions already received and accepted. The anthology will be published in the first quarter of 2025.
From the Original Call-Out
Rooted in the Latin word resistere—to make a stand, to oppose, to be dissident—resistance evokes images: of Mandela at Robben Island bearing the dreams of his people, of Che at the beachfront in Havana framed by Alberto Korda; of a little girl reading Little Women by lamplight, defiant of Boko Haram and fundamentalist terrors; of Kenya’s Freedom Corner Mothers who staged a hunger strike and stripped down to stop senseless violence and secure the release of their sons detained as political prisoners; of young protesters across the globe united by a single banner–that #BlackLivesMatter; of the lonesome poet or painter locked down in this period of pandemics and upheavals, creating nonetheless.
The current state of the world is tumultuous, and the past few years have seen many resistance movements rise. We envision Resistance as encompassing political, cultural and social opposition, from personal acts of dissidence to large-scale protests echoing across the world.
Resistance is a call to arms, a cry for change, an acknowledgement of the injustices that exist and the anthem of the oppressed. It is the quiet moments, witnessing, raising our voices, amplifying those who have been silenced. It is defiance and truth-telling, existing in spaces that were never meant for us. It is a whisper that dances between the trees, a devastating wind that transforms a community into a movement. It is found in refusing the language of the oppressors, creating and re-creating our own narratives, taking control of our songs and stories. It is joyful solidarity, tactics of care and empathy woven through with grief and struggle.
It is us, yearning, mourning, transforming and building a new world.
Make your submission to this anthology by clicking here.
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