Why is there no contemporary African fantasy? No retarded /pol/posters please...

fuck off
i want white people writing african fantasy

Neil Gaiman - Anansi Boys

niggin' and noggin' are not releveant fantasy themes

I read an article once (can't seem to find it again) that basically said that because Things Fall Apart became the most well known and acclaimed African novels, publishers expect African authors to write gritty novels about colonialism because that's what sells.

the more I read this the funnier it becomes

>publishers expect African authors to write gritty novels about colonialism because that's what sells.
That's becauseAfrican literature is just different from Western literature; colonialism is the only common point of reference between Anglophones and Africans, our metric of what is "good" doesn't apply congruently, even less so than the west/east culture rift, especially since African writing is often densely political.
There's a list of a few hundred African novels that are considered good for anglophones but I have yet to get into them and most are very difficult to find

WE.

>when there is literally thousands of years of material which one could draw on to create a compelling Afrocentric world
All evidence to the contrary.

While more magical realism than fantasy, read The Famished Road by Ben Okri.

>our metric of what is "good" doesn't apply congruently
The things people will say to avoid admitting that Africa is an artistic and intellectual black hole.

I've long dreamt of writing an Afro-centric space opera based on the mythos of Sun Ra, Parliament/Funkedelic, and Afrika Bambataa.

The all-black crew would search, Enterprise like, for the lost-funk which exists beyond the edges of the known universe.

There would be a token German science officer who commands a deck of knobs and sliders.

>There's a list of a few hundred African novels that are considered good for anglophones

Sauce?

This. The guy can't even name 1 book, he just says we can't measure their quality on any objective scale and that they're all super hard to find anyway. Cultural relativists are really something else.

Based on Africa's attempts at film making (example: youtube.com/watch?v=KEoGrbKAyKE ) I think it's safe to assume that their literary fantasy scene is similarly destitute.

this

The Vorrh?

Do you disagree?

Segments of Acacia, the series, is set in a pseudo-tribal african/indian/abo savannah culture.

The Kebra Nagast is the Ethiopian chronicles. Think a mix of poetry, theology, myth, and history.

James A. Micheners The Covenant is a story that follows the inhabitants of South Africa that has lead to its' current state, mostly from an Afrikaaner standpoint, but also from bantu and british characters.

Unless you're Indian, Nollywood is bigger than your country's film industry.

Even the cheap uganda shit looks better than a lot of American crap though.

This. Africans don't have a literary tradition and their myths and stories vary widely from tribe to tribe.

Niggers were just too primitive to develop literature. White people had to teach them how to read and write.

a sequel to the Road? they were hungry enough in the first one

>White people

>en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Writers_Series
This Earth, My Brother is supposedly very good but very hard to come by.

Look into the Nation of Islam/Nuwabian/Black Israelite religious material, all of their shit is choice.

sensiblechuckle.gif

Is that the potus daughter? I would.

N. K. Jemisin writes fantasy that takes elements from African mythology. And obviously there is tons of contemporary African fantasy that's not written in English or advertised to western audiences.

Yes

These Oats, My Brother.

Yes

Thanks!

>Niggers

>ever

>Does Africa have one of those mythological texts like the Kojiki, the Journey to the West, the Indian Epics, or the Eddas, where all of the different mythological threads are gathered together into one poetic narrative? It might be hard to draw from a tradition that exists in disparate fragments split across the entire continent. I think having that kind of foundational literature is important for allowing a mythology to really take off.
African paganism is still alive in many places so it's not like they have nothing to work off. They're far more in touch with that shit than we would be.

pic is a thicc yoruba goddess

because africans have no culture

>>>r/books

'came here to post this' as the kids say

wizard of the crow has been described as a fantasy novel

Do you really think leddit would like it?
I've been hesitating because I'm a white author, and wouldn't want it be perceived as appropriation.

For starters, you would have to have a knowledge, not just of African myth and folklore, but of the original texts and oral traditions. This would require a strong command of probably multiple African languages, while also the artistic craft required to turn them into good, original literature.

Look to the British fantasists as an example. Not in that you would have to do everything they did, but they were positively steeped in the traditions of their past.

If a great piece of African fantasy were to be produced, it probably wouldn't find much of an audience in the West. But that's kinda the point, isn't it?

lol what a cuck

Based

anyone know of any good scifi set in Africa?

>Why is there no contemporary African fantasy?

In what kind of world would that fantasy take place? What kind of Architecture, social organization? Obviously primitive tribalism and primitive feudalism doesn't work.

Islamic dominated Africa doesn't really seem to be it either. What kind of historical resources does Africa has to furbish a fantasy universe?

Africa doesn't have a unified mythology. It's all disparate tribes with different stories.

That would be fucking incredible and you should 100% make that because the black community needs some shit like that ASAP. None of this corny Hamilton shit.

>That would be fucking incredible and you should 100% make that because the black community needs some shit like that ASAP.
Thanks, user. I'm trying to skirt the line between known black tropes (Buck, black science man, strong black woman, Flavor Flav, etc), sci fi cliches, and modern social topics to create something that would be funny, insightful, and express my deep appreciation for music.
Not sure who the main adversaries would be, yet. An all-white "empire" feels very lazy.

>mightyboosh.mp4

My dude if you are seriously into this, and it's really fuckin quality I will genuinely donate two hundred smackaroonis right at you once it's finished. Not even as a commission just on principle.

>mightyboosh
Is this to whom you are referring?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mighty_Boosh
Do they touch upon this already?

I appreciate the support. I am in the final edit for another story right now, but I will begin posting chapters of this story on Veeky Forums as they are presentable.
I'm looking for a black "co-author" to help with the marketting angle. I figure I could get reddit money and troll /pol/ at the same time, while actually contributing something to a genre which could really use more exposure.

My endgame is to be the Elvis/Eminem of afro-futurism.

>troll /pol/
We'd use everything you write to encourage violence.

Eh. As long as it drives sales.

My god it probably would.

That's kind of the thing.
Would Turner Diaries still be so widely discussed, if dear ole' Tim hadn't brought it to the national consciousness?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Fears_Death

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaro

One of my artsy friends is making a memecore graphic novel project that combines Nuwabian/NOI mythos with Nazi inner earth shit. I think the core plot is the Nazis find Yakub in his moon laboratory when they escape earth on modified V2s at the end of WWII and they ally with him to colonize Antarctica and eventually invade inner earth.

>Nuwabian/NOI mythos
This sounds super fun.
>memecore graphic novel
Not so sure what this means.

sounds dope desu

He's a graphic artist so it's going to be a comic. I helped him with some brainstorming. He doesn't want a plot that's too complex because I think he's more interested in character design and development.

It really kind of seems like most modern African/Black culture can exist only in relation to whitey. Take away white people as an oppressor/antagonist and it really seems like most black writers have nothing to write about.

That movie Precious lacked a white antagonist and that was just nothing but the pure misery of living among black people.

Read this OP

The Epic of Sundiata from Mali stands out in my mind. It's a slog, but a really interesting book and look at both the rise of Mali and the society and culture of the Mande peoples around the Niger basin. I'd say it's something between Journey to the West and Secret History of the Mongols

Things Fall Apart

:(

>Epic of Sundiata
Read this in Undergrad.
It was interesting, but I don't remember too much about it.

>the best examples of African literature are stories that white people collected and wrote down because Africans were too dumb to into writing
Oral tradition is great and all, but it dies with the tribe. Africans are simply inferior.

This is a good book desu

Yes.

I'm working on it you fucking bitch.

>oral tradition dies with the tribe
>Mande peoples still dominate the upper Niger and tell this story 800 years on

Pick one.

Libraries burn, cities get sacked, but up until the 20th century, it was remarkably difficult to eradicate entire ethnic groups and their oral traditions wholesale.

Hell, Homer never wrote his work down

But user, if he were to understand that The Bible, The Greeks and the other basis of Western thought were, at one time, strictly oral, than he might have to reconsider his perceived superiority to pre-literary cultures, possibly becoming a less bigoted and hateful person.
And then where he would be?

A fucking white male writing about black people? Are you kidding me?

I'm honestly just more pissed about the loloraltraditions meme. That shit is far more effective at preserving and transmitting literature, ideas and culture than most retards want to assume, because somehow every griot or chronicler who ever lived apparently never spent their lives honing their craft and instead had the attention span and literary depth of a modern reader or a kindergarten game of telephone

I'm totally with you. Imagine memorizing the entire works of Shakespeare. That is the level that these Griots are at.
WIth perfect recall. It's awe-inspiring, really.

>kidding
You misspelled, "triggering," my ironic friend.

>Africans aren't inferior, they're just at the same developmental stage as the West was 2000 years ago
Yeah, griots are impressive, but it's still an inefficient method. You can admit that Africans aren't on the same level as Westerners, nobody is going to downvote you here.

>Why is there no contemporary African fantasy?
There is. Afrofuturism. It's just not popular because whitey owns the media.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrofuturism

Afrofuturism is a meme and most of them are just American blacks who have never been to Africa in their lives

You're the meme, Anonymous.

Great Zimbabwe, Songhai, Manden Kurufaba, Ethiopian empires

>levels
>Thinking that civilization grows in a straight line like a fucking round of Civ
>Thinking that oral traditions aren't superior to written languages in vast, sparse desert communities and trading networks where paper and the desire to scribble down what you already know by heart is necessary
>Thinking that huge repositories of written works on religion, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, agriculture, economics, politics, history, family life, and every other topic under the sun didn't already exist at Timbuktu under Sundiata's heirs

I'd point you at some historical works on the Niger basin and the Sahel, but I get the distinct impression you'd start bitching about Jews

>too dumb to into writing

No, not centralized enough to collect their traditions into a cohesive narrative due to the fractured, tribal nature of African demography.

I think Socrates was right and that writing things down made us dumber. I mean just look at how rapidly people's ability to do anything fails as they replace the natural method with technology.

>writing things down made us dumber.
The irony of the specific medium through which we are sharing our agreement on this topic is rich enough to induce 'beetus.

Historically not always the case, though more an exception than a rule. Urbanized locales like Timbuktu or the Swahili Coast did maintain pretty sizeable written libraries and traditions, though this was also complemented by oral traditions and formats. Swahili poetry has a fair bit of this.

plenty of WE WUZ KANGZ books about flying pyramids

have you read Amos Tutuola?

See what I mean:
>You're the meme, Anonymous.
See:

OP, read this dude. More like folktale-ish magical realism than fantasy, but it's close. I think there is The Palm Wine Drinkard plus My Life in the Bush of Ghosts in a single volume.

here you go get woke crackers

>The Palm Wine Drinkard
This book looks fascinating. Thanks.

>I second this, along with this book
>written by an Israeli "Jewish" historian and was a bestseller in Israel
Even the Ashkenazis know they are frauds.

how do you get the glasses to levitate above your pile of books?