At First, There Was No Blood

Pot of Stories

At First, There Was No Blood: Unlearning Afro-womanism ➤

Adebola Makinde in Agbowó

Innocence stripped. This is the story of a young girl growing into adulthood while navigating the struggles of being a young woman, most especially her sex life. What triggers her first sexual encounter? How was the experience? What comes after?

Seed of Faith ➤

Joy Udensi in Isele

Papa died, and no one knows if the death is diabolical or a proper illness. But he died anyway. After his death, his family came to claim his properties because his wife didn’t birth a boy child. Papa’s children are all female children, and in their tradition, females aren’t entitled to inheritance. Will papa’s wife and his girls be stranded due to his distant family’s insensitivity?

Liberté ➤

Moustapha Mbacké Diop in Agbowó

A young man, in Dakar, finds himself as a hostage. He’s not aware of why he’s being kept. He’s in chains sometimes, out of chains other times. He is weak and hunger grows to be his friend for days. Will he make it out of captivity?

A Tiny Seedling ➤

Chinonyelum Anyichie in Shallow Tales Review

Migration can be tasking considering the challenges of moving from one settlement to another, and the struggles of adapting, especially if the new place is far away from home, with a different way of life. This is the situation of Ifunanya in this gripping story.

Unfurling ➤

Chideraa Ike-Akaenyi in Agbowó

Chidera reflects on the events that unfolded in her eyes from April to June this year; her mother’s loss and her challenges with religious practices conflicting with world views.

Pot of Poetry

Birds breaking From Trees ➤

Farai Chaka in Agbowó

In uptown streets and markets my

English fails me on the tongue

and melts away like butter

kissed by heat

Silence ➤

Fasisi Abdulrosheed in OBBLT

Nature has a way of giving us what our parents and community failed to give us, until

Those they trusted us with made it the gateway to fondle our bony boyhood,

Renaming the Rainbow ➤

Damilola Omotoyinbo in Shallow Tales Review

we remembered

that rainbows do not fade without

leaving footprints in the sky.

call this a ritual of remembrance;

a bunch of colours waiting to be re-named.

Sinnerman➤

Kwame Boateng in Agbowó

my skin has been properly flayed

Its ebony still swallowing light

a photosynthesis of worlds surviving on little

A Brief Record of Disappearance➤

Romeo Oriogun in Agbowó

And before clouds become the soft drizzle

on grasses, a child sings this song of awe:

what are you eating? I am eating the eye of history.

I am seeing the dark places of my life.

Book Recommendations

An Angel’s Demise ➤

Sue Nyathi (2022)

Angel grows up on the farm over three momentous decades that see a convoluted past and inheritance unfold into an equally complicated present. Through her, we see a woman’s quest to unearth her identity and assert her independence. In the process of self-discovery, Angel realises that sometimes you need to be uprooted before you can grow.

An Angel’s Demise, Sue Nyathi’s fourth novel, is a gripping tale infused with spirituality. It recounts an explosive story of love, war, bloody massacre and betrayal that encompasses a harrowing history, the cruel caprice of politics, gender-based violence and what happens when ordinary people get caught up in lies.