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It has been six years since the first AfroSF anthology was published, and in those years the landscape of African SFF has radically changed for the better.
The African Speculative Fiction Society was founded in 2016 and created and hosts the annual Nommo Awards (funded by Tom Ilube) for African SFF since 2017. The ASFS also created and maintains the most comprehensive database of published African SFF.
We have Mazi Nwonwu and Chinelo Onwualu’s Omenana magazine dedicated to and publishing African SFF on a regular basis. Ainehi Edoro’s Brittle Paper magazine though not dedicated to African SFF also regularly publishes it. Likewise African publishers: Jalalda, Chimurenga, Dada, Short Story Day Africa, The Kalahari Review, Black Letter Media, Johannesburg Review of Books, Okada Books, Enkare Review, African Writer, Afreada, umSinsi Press, Bahati Books, Kwani?, Munyori Literary Journal, Afridiaspora, Pan African Publishers, Sub-Saharan Magazine, and Jacana Media, to name a few have embraced African SFF in short stories, novellas, anthologies, and novels.
Nnedi Okorafor has become our undisputed queen, winning the World Fantasy award in 2011, and both the Nebula Award and Hugo Award in 2016. And if there is a king to be it is probably Tade Thompson, winner of two Nommos, Kitschies Golden Tentacle Award, and a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award as well as nominations for the Shirley Jackson Award and the British Science Fiction Award.
What this all amounts to is an unparalleled interest in African SFF both at home and abroad with more and more writers, publishers, and most importantly readers, realising a thirst for homegrown African SFF, for works that address our unique problems and envisions our futures.
This brings me to the focus of AfroSFv3. Space, the astronomical wilderness that has enthralled our minds since we first looked up in wonder. We are ineffably drawn to it, and equally terrified by it. We have created endless mythologies, sciences, and even religions, in the quest to understand it. We know more now than ever before and are taking our first real steps. What will become of Africans out there, will we thrive, how will space change us, how will we change it? AfroSFv3 is going out there, into the great expanse, and with twelve visions of the future we invite you to sit back, strap in, and enjoy the ride.
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Ivor W. Hartmann is a Zimbabwean writer, editor, publisher, and visual artist. Awarded The Golden Baobab Prize (2009), finalist for the Yvonne Vera Award (2011), selected for The 20 in Twenty: The Best Short Stories of South Africa’s Democracy (2014), and awarded third place in the Jalada Prize for Literature (2015). He runs the StoryTime micro-press, publisher of the AfroSF series of anthologies, is a founding member of the African Speculative Fiction Society.
