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Adedapo Adeniyi (also goes by Dapo The Abstract) is a Nigerian artist working in literature, film and photography, music (DJ) as well as art curation and counterculture archiving. He expresses his art through abstract avant-garde sensibilities. His debut novel, Wanderer, is available in stores.

Dapo holding his novel, Wanderer

Chisom Umeh is a Nigerian fiction writer and poet. His short stories have been featured in Omenana, Apex, Clarkesworld, Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2023, African Ghosts anthology, Isele, Mythaxis, Scifi Shorts, and elsewhere. His short story, “Ancestor’s Gift”, won the 2024 Tractor Beam short story contest. He was a finalist for the Seattle Worldcon Short Story Contest and is the winner of the 2025 Nommo Award for Best African Speculative Fiction Short Story.

Chisom, holding a copy of the Wanderer. Image: African Imaginary

Chisom: Hey Dapo.

Nice to have you do the interview.

I finished reading your novel Wanderer a couple of days ago, and I must say, the journey feels like one long dream. It’s a steady flow of alternating sentences and logic that sometimes contradict each other and yet, strangely enough, feels complete and cohesive. Can you tell me how you were able to keep the story you were trying to tell in focus, even while spinning such a wild tale?

Dapo: Thank you, Chisom. I’m excited to have this interview with you.

I want to start by saying the story mostly wrote itself; I was just a conduit. Most of this book was written in an automatist, stream-of-consciousness style. They were retellings of dreams, memories, and reality, and I wanted them to appear that way. I never lost sight of the story because I welcomed getting lost as I was writing it to find myself.

Chisom: Oh, that’s pretty interesting. To me, the novel reads like Amos Tutuola’s The Palmwine Drinkard crossed with Vajra Chandrasekera’s luminous prose. It definitely felt like older hands were guiding yours on the page. Were there literary influences you were channeling when writing the book?

Dapo: Yeah, I mean, I try to stay away from direct influences while I’m writing, and I didn’t read The Palmwine Drinkard until after I wrote Wanderer. I took influences more from films and cinematic sensibilities than literary, but in that regard, Borges, Philip K. Dick, Timothy Leary, André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto, Aldous Huxley’s The Doors Of Perception, and my editor and friend, Manuel Marrero. I think these are the ones I can remember right now, plus I don’t want to go overboard. But these people and their works across surrealism, psychedelia, paranoid fiction, sci-fi, metafiction, and so on influenced me in many ways and were formative for how I approached writing and this book.

Chisom: It’s interesting that you mentioned Surrealist Manifesto, psychedelia, and paranoid fiction, because in an essay in Medium titled Abstractism Manifesto, you talked about how ‘abstractism’ is a term that subsumes all of these concepts and more. I like the way you explained it in the essay and how it relates to your work. But could you do a quick description of the term (abstractism) so we could understand it in relation to your work?

Dapo: Absolutely! So when I wrote the Abstractism Manifesto in early 2023, I defined it as being an amalgamation of solipsism, surrealism, psychedelia, subjective reality, and the physics of psychosis. I believe abstractism brings these concepts together to take reality and the world around us from a state of form to an abstract sensory state of formlessness, and that’s what I try to do with my work — the dissolution of some absolute real into an abstract cosmic real.

Chisom: In your experience as a filmmaker, what is the major difference between visual storytelling and written one? Do you prefer one medium over the other?

Dapo: I mean, writing is definitely cheaper. Making films is more expensive and taxing. I also think it’ll kill me faster so that might be why right now it excites me more than writing does. But, frankly, the major difference is the painting. With words, I’m guiding the readers’ imagination. At the end of the day, everyone will come out of it with different images. But with film, I have to literally represent those images on the screen. I’m doing the painting for the audience, they just have to watch and engage.

Chisom: Besides making movies, I know that you do some DJ work on the side. You had a collaboration with NTS, which is really great. How did that happen?

Dapo: Let me put it in context: I work with this new-age collective called Freewater, which was founded by my friends. I serve as its curator and co-director. Freewater secured a residency with NTS Radio, and since I also DJ, they featured one of my mixes as part of the collective. We’re having an underground, new wave music festival/concert on the 11th of December (I think the interview will be out after it?), and NTS is our major partner.

Chisom: That’s incredible, actually. So, does your music influence your writing in any way? Some writers like to curate playlists for particular writing projects. Something they listen to just to put themselves in the mood. Are you that kind of writer?

Dapo: Music definitely plays a huge part in my process. When I was writing Wanderer, all I listened to was shoegaze. I found a shoegaze playlist that had over a hundred songs and it was all I listened to while I slept and dreamt and while I wrote as well. I’ve been DJing for almost 2 years now, and it’s made me understand music as well as how different people interact with it. There are sensibilities of transience I borrowed from writing and translated to how I DJ.

Chisom: I kept wondering about the shoegaze reference when I was reading the book. Something told me there was more to it than just being an element in the story, and I’m glad you just confirmed that. Which brings me to your process with writing your stories and how you edit them. Do you edit while writing or after?

Dapo: Oh yeah, shoegaze has a very dreamlike, haze-inducing feeling and I wanted the book to feel like that. I do very minimal editing while writing. I finished the entire thing then read it over a couple of times before sending it to my editor, and we had this period of sending drafts back and forth and conversations on the subject matter.

But enough about me, I want to hear what type of music you listen to and how editing works for you. I mean, you just won the Nommo, haha.

Chisom: Oh, lol.

Well, I’m very mundane with my music. I don’t have any playlists or do any sort of curation. In fact, when I’m writing, I wouldn’t want to hear any music at all as it easily interferes with my thought processes and breaks my stream-of-consciousness, AKA “flow”. But when I do listen to music, outside writing, it’s very Davido and Asake and Victony, and whatever Dlala Thukzin just released. For edits, I can’t move forward with writing if I feel like there’s something wrong with a previous sentence. So I tinker with that till it feels fine to me. So we’re maybe kind of opposites on this.

Dapo: Correct me if I’m wrong but you seem like a very calculated writer. You’re delicate about detail, you’re careful. I think it’s beautiful. I wish I could be that type of writer. Like I said before (this may sound a little pretentious but I fully believe it), I don’t really do any writing, these things write themselves and use me as a conduit. I don’t know where they come from or where they are going or why; they come raw and I write in real time. My flow can be erratic most times.

Chisom: I like to think I have an eye for detail, but, trust me, I’m not really that meticulous. I know writers who would draw up elaborate plots that cover the first scene to the last, and fill up a board with sticky notes. Me? I mostly just sit down and write a story as it comes into my head. I think both our approaches are valid, so long as the outcome is something folks can read and enjoy. When I’m done writing and send the work out, that’s where my effort ends. But I’ve seen you go through hell and high water to publicize your book. And it has really paid off. Maybe that’s something you’d teach me someday?

Nardwuar holding a copy of Dapo’s first novel, Wanderer

Dapo: You’re amazing, so we’re kin.

Thank you, I think it’s been a learning curve. A lot of how this book has been handled is experimental, constantly trying to see how to reinvent whatever a rollout is supposed to be. Some days before the book came out I’d post videos of just my legs as I was walking around. Wandering, if you will. I made cards and handed out googly eyes. I’ve had readings and talks. I even had an abstractism lecture and played a psychedelic techno set. I keep thinking of ways to present a work of literature outside of just the confines of literature, especially as a multimedia artist. I look forward to reinterpreting the book and presenting it in so many other formats: photograph, sound, installation, you name it.

Chisom: Say I wanted to try my hand at writing abstractism, are you holding one of those lectures anytime soon?

Dapo: Hopefully sometime early next year. I’m working on writing another edition of the manifesto that’s more professional, but I think that through reading the manifesto that’s up right now, as well as Wanderer and some of my short stories, anyone could get the gist of what abstractism is.

What’s next for you now Chisom? In the world of African Speculative Fiction.

Chisom: For me, I’m also trying to piece together a collection of short stories that hopefully might be my debut in the book-publishing space. I want most of the stories in the collection to be centered around two themes, so that means I’m writing mostly new stories.

Anyway, it’s really been wonderful having this chat with you. I’m looking forward to reading more of your stuff in the future.

Dapo: Sending you love and the best of wishes Chisom, excited to see your collection. I’ll send you mine as it comes along. You’re a refreshing voice in the scene here.

Wanderer, cover art

Adedapo Adeniyi (also goes by Dapo The Abstract) is a Nigerian artist working in literature, film and photography, music (DJ) as well as art curation and counterculture archiving. He expresses his art through abstract avant-garde sensibilities. His debut novel, Wanderer, is available in stores.

Dapo holding his novel, Wanderer

Chisom Umeh is a Nigerian fiction writer and poet. His short stories have been featured in Omenana, Apex, Clarkesworld, Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2023, African Ghosts anthology, Isele, Mythaxis, Scifi Shorts, and elsewhere. His short story, “Ancestor’s Gift”, won the 2024 Tractor Beam short story contest. He was a finalist for the Seattle Worldcon Short Story Contest and is the winner of the 2025 Nommo Award for Best African Speculative Fiction Short Story.

Chisom, holding a copy of the Wanderer. Image: African Imaginary

Chisom: Hey Dapo.

Nice to have you do the interview.

I finished reading your novel Wanderer a couple of days ago, and I must say, the journey feels like one long dream. It’s a steady flow of alternating sentences and logic that sometimes contradict each other and yet, strangely enough, feels complete and cohesive. Can you tell me how you were able to keep the story you were trying to tell in focus, even while spinning such a wild tale?

Dapo: Thank you, Chisom. I’m excited to have this interview with you.

I want to start by saying the story mostly wrote itself; I was just a conduit. Most of this book was written in an automatist, stream-of-consciousness style. They were retellings of dreams, memories, and reality, and I wanted them to appear that way. I never lost sight of the story because I welcomed getting lost as I was writing it to find myself.

Chisom: Oh, that’s pretty interesting. To me, the novel reads like Amos Tutuola’s The Palmwine Drinkard crossed with Vajra Chandrasekera’s luminous prose. It definitely felt like older hands were guiding yours on the page. Were there literary influences you were channeling when writing the book?

Dapo: Yeah, I mean, I try to stay away from direct influences while I’m writing, and I didn’t read The Palmwine Drinkard until after I wrote Wanderer. I took influences more from films and cinematic sensibilities than literary, but in that regard, Borges, Philip K. Dick, Timothy Leary, André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto, Aldous Huxley’s The Doors Of Perception, and my editor and friend, Manuel Marrero. I think these are the ones I can remember right now, plus I don’t want to go overboard. But these people and their works across surrealism, psychedelia, paranoid fiction, sci-fi, metafiction, and so on influenced me in many ways and were formative for how I approached writing and this book.

Chisom: It’s interesting that you mentioned Surrealist Manifesto, psychedelia, and paranoid fiction, because in an essay in Medium titled Abstractism Manifesto, you talked about how ‘abstractism’ is a term that subsumes all of these concepts and more. I like the way you explained it in the essay and how it relates to your work. But could you do a quick description of the term (abstractism) so we could understand it in relation to your work?

Dapo: Absolutely! So when I wrote the Abstractism Manifesto in early 2023, I defined it as being an amalgamation of solipsism, surrealism, psychedelia, subjective reality, and the physics of psychosis. I believe abstractism brings these concepts together to take reality and the world around us from a state of form to an abstract sensory state of formlessness, and that’s what I try to do with my work — the dissolution of some absolute real into an abstract cosmic real.

Chisom: In your experience as a filmmaker, what is the major difference between visual storytelling and written one? Do you prefer one medium over the other?

Dapo: I mean, writing is definitely cheaper. Making films is more expensive and taxing. I also think it’ll kill me faster so that might be why right now it excites me more than writing does. But, frankly, the major difference is the painting. With words, I’m guiding the readers’ imagination. At the end of the day, everyone will come out of it with different images. But with film, I have to literally represent those images on the screen. I’m doing the painting for the audience, they just have to watch and engage.

Chisom: Besides making movies, I know that you do some DJ work on the side. You had a collaboration with NTS, which is really great. How did that happen?

Dapo: Let me put it in context: I work with this new-age collective called Freewater, which was founded by my friends. I serve as its curator and co-director. Freewater secured a residency with NTS Radio, and since I also DJ, they featured one of my mixes as part of the collective. We’re having an underground, new wave music festival/concert on the 11th of December (I think the interview will be out after it?), and NTS is our major partner.

Chisom: That’s incredible, actually. So, does your music influence your writing in any way? Some writers like to curate playlists for particular writing projects. Something they listen to just to put themselves in the mood. Are you that kind of writer?

Dapo: Music definitely plays a huge part in my process. When I was writing Wanderer, all I listened to was shoegaze. I found a shoegaze playlist that had over a hundred songs and it was all I listened to while I slept and dreamt and while I wrote as well. I’ve been DJing for almost 2 years now, and it’s made me understand music as well as how different people interact with it. There are sensibilities of transience I borrowed from writing and translated to how I DJ.

Chisom: I kept wondering about the shoegaze reference when I was reading the book. Something told me there was more to it than just being an element in the story, and I’m glad you just confirmed that. Which brings me to your process with writing your stories and how you edit them. Do you edit while writing or after?

Dapo: Oh yeah, shoegaze has a very dreamlike, haze-inducing feeling and I wanted the book to feel like that. I do very minimal editing while writing. I finished the entire thing then read it over a couple of times before sending it to my editor, and we had this period of sending drafts back and forth and conversations on the subject matter.

But enough about me, I want to hear what type of music you listen to and how editing works for you. I mean, you just won the Nommo, haha.

Chisom: Oh, lol.

Well, I’m very mundane with my music. I don’t have any playlists or do any sort of curation. In fact, when I’m writing, I wouldn’t want to hear any music at all as it easily interferes with my thought processes and breaks my stream-of-consciousness, AKA “flow”. But when I do listen to music, outside writing, it’s very Davido and Asake and Victony, and whatever Dlala Thukzin just released. For edits, I can’t move forward with writing if I feel like there’s something wrong with a previous sentence. So I tinker with that till it feels fine to me. So we’re maybe kind of opposites on this.

Dapo: Correct me if I’m wrong but you seem like a very calculated writer. You’re delicate about detail, you’re careful. I think it’s beautiful. I wish I could be that type of writer. Like I said before (this may sound a little pretentious but I fully believe it), I don’t really do any writing, these things write themselves and use me as a conduit. I don’t know where they come from or where they are going or why; they come raw and I write in real time. My flow can be erratic most times.

Chisom: I like to think I have an eye for detail, but, trust me, I’m not really that meticulous. I know writers who would draw up elaborate plots that cover the first scene to the last, and fill up a board with sticky notes. Me? I mostly just sit down and write a story as it comes into my head. I think both our approaches are valid, so long as the outcome is something folks can read and enjoy. When I’m done writing and send the work out, that’s where my effort ends. But I’ve seen you go through hell and high water to publicize your book. And it has really paid off. Maybe that’s something you’d teach me someday?

Nardwuar holding a copy of Dapo’s first novel, Wanderer

Dapo: You’re amazing, so we’re kin.

Thank you, I think it’s been a learning curve. A lot of how this book has been handled is experimental, constantly trying to see how to reinvent whatever a rollout is supposed to be. Some days before the book came out I’d post videos of just my legs as I was walking around. Wandering, if you will. I made cards and handed out googly eyes. I’ve had readings and talks. I even had an abstractism lecture and played a psychedelic techno set. I keep thinking of ways to present a work of literature outside of just the confines of literature, especially as a multimedia artist. I look forward to reinterpreting the book and presenting it in so many other formats: photograph, sound, installation, you name it.

Chisom: Say I wanted to try my hand at writing abstractism, are you holding one of those lectures anytime soon?

Dapo: Hopefully sometime early next year. I’m working on writing another edition of the manifesto that’s more professional, but I think that through reading the manifesto that’s up right now, as well as Wanderer and some of my short stories, anyone could get the gist of what abstractism is.

What’s next for you now Chisom? In the world of African Speculative Fiction.

Chisom: For me, I’m also trying to piece together a collection of short stories that hopefully might be my debut in the book-publishing space. I want most of the stories in the collection to be centered around two themes, so that means I’m writing mostly new stories.

Anyway, it’s really been wonderful having this chat with you. I’m looking forward to reading more of your stuff in the future.

Dapo: Sending you love and the best of wishes Chisom, excited to see your collection. I’ll send you mine as it comes along. You’re a refreshing voice in the scene here.

Wanderer, cover art

John Varley, 78, died December 10, 2025 in his home in Beaverton OR. He had COPD and diabetes.

John Herbert Varley, known to his friends as Herb, was born August 9, 1947 in Austin TX. He attended Michigan State University. His first novelette, Picnic on Nearside , released in 1974, establishing the Eight Worlds universe. He went on to publish about 20 more Eight Worlds works, including his first novel …Read More

Literary Hub has published an annual list of noteworthy books published in 2025 by small presses, reviewed by a selection of 40 contributors. The list was conceived in 2024 to complementThe New York Times annual 100 Notable Books list, which featured approximately 11% small or independent publishers in 2024 and approximately 14% in 2025.

Post author Miriam Gershow writes,

This isnota best of list. This isnota comprehensive survey of all …Read More

Winners of the 2025 Deutsche Science Fiction Preis, presented by Science Fiction Club Deutschland (SFCD), have been announced.

Best German-Language SF Novel:

• WINNER: Das zweigeteilte All, Ralph Alexander Neumüller (p.machinery)

• 2nd place: Antarer: Besuch aus dem All, Ralph Edenhofer (self-published)
• 3rd place: Die Sphäre, Tom van Allen (self-published)
• 4th place: Ghostnet – Die letzte Stadt, Fabian K. Roth (self-published)
• 5th place: Apeirophobia, Christian J. Meier (Hirnkost)
• 6th …Read More

The Cercador Prize has announced Jazmina Barrera's The Queen of Swords, translated by Christina MacSweeney (Two Lines), as its 2025 winner. The $1000 prize recognizes works of literature in translation as selected by a committee of independent booksellers based across the United States.

The Cercador Prize bookseller committee, chaired by Emily Tarr, wrote in a statement shared on Instagram,

The Queen of Swords, presented here in a lyrical translation …Read More

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has declined to hear the appeal of the plaintiffs in Little v. Llano County, who sought to challenge the removal of 17 works from public libraries in Texas, with authors of genre interest including Lauren Myracle and Maurice Sendak.

In May 2025, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision that reversed more than 40 years of precedent in constitutional law, …Read More

The winners of the African Speculative Fiction Society (ASFS) 2025 Nommo Awards, given to works by Africans as defined by the ASFS and Nommo Awards Guidelines, were announced at a the 2025 Aké Arts & Book Festival Welcome Ceremony in Lagos and livestreamed on YouTube on November 20, 2025.

Best Novel

• WINNER: Womb City, Tlotlo Tsamaase (Kensington)

• The Smoke That Thunders, Erhu Kome (Norton Young Readers)
…Read More

Winners of the 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards, voted on by users of the site, have been announced. Winners of genre interest include:

Romantasy: Onyx Storm, Rebecca Yarros (Red Tower) 298,565 votes

Fantasy: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V.E. Schwab (Tor) 102,408 votes

Science Fiction: The Compound, Aisling Rawle (Random House) 45,287 votes

Horror: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, Grady Hendrix (Berkley) 59,603 votes

Young Adult Fantasy & Sci-Fi: Sunrise …Read More

The second annual Future Creation Workshop in Chongqing, held October 13-22, featured many improvements over the first workshop. What remained the same was the gathering of aspiring writers from around China to pursue dreams of publishing their work in their home country and the West. This year's distinguished faculty included Chinese writers Wu Yan, Jiang Bo, Bao Shu, Ling Chen, Cheng Jingbo, and Deng Siyuan as well as international …Read More

The 51st World Fantasy Convention, held in combination with British Fantasycon, was held October 30 - November 2, 2025 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Brighton Metropole in blustery Brighton UK. Guests of honor were author Suniti Namjoshi, artist Vincent Chong, and publishers Vivian Cheung & Nick Landau, with toastmaster Joanne Harris and horror laureate Ramsey Campbell. Life Achievement Awards winners were Juliet Marillier and Michael Whelan. There were two …Read More

“I wanted to capture the essence of the place.” 

Nkereuwem Albert A review by Jesutomisin Ipinmoye The Bone River by Nkereuwem Albert is an urban fantasy published by Phoenix, an imprint of Ouida Books focused on Science Fiction and Fantasy stories. 

There are many things to love about The Bone River.

There is the magic system, the sense of a thick and present world bubbling away beneath the fabric of our own world. In Nkereuwem’s Calabar, miracles are the work of Pastors contorting magic in front of a blind congregation, and penises can, in fact, be stolen. By virtue of your initiation and belonging to one of four houses, you become a conduit to magic and mystery seeping out of the earth. You can command the dead, kindle fire from within you, and form familiars out of bone. You can shape it into beasts and seal gods. It is a land of infinite possibility. If you’re creative enough, you can conjure magic in service of peace—or to deceive.

This brings me to the story itself. By the time you put down Nkereuwem’s The Bone River, you would have witnessed how fragile peace can be, while war remains a latent possibility. This in itself should not be a discovery. We are well familiar with the flexibility of politicised narratives, the speculative reality of a truth wielded by authority. Surely, it should not take too much imagination to condense the abstraction of the lie beneath Calabar’s secret peace into a manner of critique about the cities we inhabit or the stories we tell about the blood that soaks our collective memories. After all, there is even greater violence than a certain bastard’s deception that is used every day as a tool to maintain a semblance of “status quo,” a peace with which no one is comfortable. And yet, the discovery of deception, as you read, grabs you. You know things like this happen, and yet, you are shocked. Why wouldn’t you be? It is the job of good fantasy to re-expose us to reality afresh. When you have seen and seen and seen with all your seeing eyes, the world unseen can and should shock you in new ways. 

And then there is a stressful sapphic romance.

Stressful, because I am unfortunately a sucker for simple romances that make you go awwww. That’s boring, but man, when it comes to love, I love boring. It is in this regard that Nkereuwem is after my life. When you travel with Onari “Heych” Henshaw and Afem Aba Ye Duop, you soak in so much of them that you wish that their love was enough to topple kingdoms and overpower all complications. After all, isn’t this what every queer person secretly hopes? Who can deny the desire that love should be enough? And yet, the solidity of a relationship is rooted in the decisions, not merely in feelings. The weight of “I Love You” is in how long it takes to say the words and how desperate the ear waiting to hear them is. The rejection bites harder when you know what is lost. Abasi, it is heartwrenching and beautiful, and I think Nkereuwem deserves to be flogged for it.

Indeed, there are many things to love about The Bone River. And yet, I find myself most drawn to the city where it all happens.

The Bone River is a love letter to Calabar. That much is indisputable. The Nigerian city rises to such a state of presence within the story that I must consider Nkereuwem a romantic. Only a true lover knows the soul of another this way. He went to the University of Calabar to study dental surgery, and his encounters with morbid anatomy and healthcare are evident in the work. Consider Afem and Necromancy. The level of detail with which her dealings with death are described could have been the fruit of scientific research, but it also bears an intimacy that renders some of the prose in many parts unnerving.

I am aware of the conversation that happened between Nkereuwem Nkereuwem and Gabrielle Emem Harry on Old Marian street in Calabar. The very conversation that birthed this book. I’ll save it for the good doctor — this is the one “Dr.” reference he’s allowed me — to share. But, the very story, from the moment I heard it, filled me with envy.

For both of them, Calabar is a city with claws. You see it in the way Nkereuwem writes: it is from the soil and the water of the land that everything pours. Magic comes with deep veneration. Even when the magic is a job, or a duty, or a burden, or a conquest, there is still the acknowledgement of place that flows with it. The writers are at its whims and yet, there is a desire to hold it in regard, a desire to attenuate their relationship with it such that it benefits them. Perhaps even to own it. You get the feeling that the text spiritually lifts Calabar off the map and looks into all parts of it.

Forgive my use of second person there — perhaps this is an emotional sentiment that resonates strongly only with me. But you must understand, I write from a place of dislocation. My next sentence on a blank page comes with a lilt — it can not land. And so work this grounded feels like a heady offering to me. It is a bold attestation of belonging that makes me weep.

In a voice note I prodded Nkereuwem with in preparation for writing this, I asked about this translation of place. Forgive me for taking tips in the name of a review. In his reply, he said he wanted to “capture the essence of the place.” He spoke of work like Chimeka Garrick’s A Broken People’s Playlist, another love letter, but to Port Harcourt. He spoke of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Nsukka. What he spoke of, without words, was the kind of understanding that comes from a place where and when one really lives. 

And when one really lives, what is a surprise? What new thing did Calabar whisper to Nkereuwem Nkereuwem? It is this familiarity that allows Nkereuwem to reproduce Calabar and its headiness with microscopic detail.

I know this is a strange take-away. Understand that I am a person of many dislocations. Home is still a place that I am looking for with both eyes open and both palms outstretched. But that is what fantasy is for; the very act of peeling open a world unseen requires you to know every dwindling trickle of tar and bend of its bay. And so The Bone River came to me at the right time. It came as a reminder that you only move on when you find unseen but solid ground.

In her review of Ben Okri’s seminal novel, The Famished Road, Linda Grant recounted, “When I finished the book and went outside, it was as if all the trees of South London had angels sitting in them.”

It is the power of excellent fantasy, of characters dwelling behind a curtain in our very own worlds, speculating about us as we about them, that allows us to, very briefly, wipe the scales off our own eyes and see the secret peace that holds our foundation. Much like Grant, I finished The Bone River and stepped outside my house, hopeful that I could feel sigils and wards inscribed in the walls of my home, trusting that I could find my unseen world, too.

Bio:

Jesutomisin Ipinmoye is an author and beleaguered lecturer learning to suffer sexily on an island in the Indian Ocean. He is a big fan of the short story and, as such, has publications (in, or upcoming in, Khoreo, Twisted Tongue, Brittle Paper, etc.) and a book (“How to Get Rid of Ants,” Parrésia Publishing) to that effect. You can find him on Substack, where he’s investigating our stuck-ness in time.

“I wanted to capture the essence of the place.” 

Nkereuwem Albert A review by Jesutomisin Ipinmoye The Bone River by Nkereuwem Albert is an urban fantasy published by Phoenix, an imprint of Ouida Books focused on Science Fiction and Fantasy stories. 

There are many things to love about The Bone River.

There is the magic system, the sense of a thick and present world bubbling away beneath the fabric of our own world. In Nkereuwem’s Calabar, miracles are the work of Pastors contorting magic in front of a blind congregation, and penises can, in fact, be stolen. By virtue of your initiation and belonging to one of four houses, you become a conduit to magic and mystery seeping out of the earth. You can command the dead, kindle fire from within you, and form familiars out of bone. You can shape it into beasts and seal gods. It is a land of infinite possibility. If you’re creative enough, you can conjure magic in service of peace—or to deceive.

This brings me to the story itself. By the time you put down Nkereuwem’s The Bone River, you would have witnessed how fragile peace can be, while war remains a latent possibility. This in itself should not be a discovery. We are well familiar with the flexibility of politicised narratives, the speculative reality of a truth wielded by authority. Surely, it should not take too much imagination to condense the abstraction of the lie beneath Calabar’s secret peace into a manner of critique about the cities we inhabit or the stories we tell about the blood that soaks our collective memories. After all, there is even greater violence than a certain bastard’s deception that is used every day as a tool to maintain a semblance of “status quo,” a peace with which no one is comfortable. And yet, the discovery of deception, as you read, grabs you. You know things like this happen, and yet, you are shocked. Why wouldn’t you be? It is the job of good fantasy to re-expose us to reality afresh. When you have seen and seen and seen with all your seeing eyes, the world unseen can and should shock you in new ways. 

And then there is a stressful sapphic romance.

Stressful, because I am unfortunately a sucker for simple romances that make you go awwww. That’s boring, but man, when it comes to love, I love boring. It is in this regard that Nkereuwem is after my life. When you travel with Onari “Heych” Henshaw and Afem Aba Ye Duop, you soak in so much of them that you wish that their love was enough to topple kingdoms and overpower all complications. After all, isn’t this what every queer person secretly hopes? Who can deny the desire that love should be enough? And yet, the solidity of a relationship is rooted in the decisions, not merely in feelings. The weight of “I Love You” is in how long it takes to say the words and how desperate the ear waiting to hear them is. The rejection bites harder when you know what is lost. Abasi, it is heartwrenching and beautiful, and I think Nkereuwem deserves to be flogged for it.

Indeed, there are many things to love about The Bone River. And yet, I find myself most drawn to the city where it all happens.

The Bone River is a love letter to Calabar. That much is indisputable. The Nigerian city rises to such a state of presence within the story that I must consider Nkereuwem a romantic. Only a true lover knows the soul of another this way. He went to the University of Calabar to study dental surgery, and his encounters with morbid anatomy and healthcare are evident in the work. Consider Afem and Necromancy. The level of detail with which her dealings with death are described could have been the fruit of scientific research, but it also bears an intimacy that renders some of the prose in many parts unnerving.

I am aware of the conversation that happened between Nkereuwem Nkereuwem and Gabrielle Emem Harry on Old Marian street in Calabar. The very conversation that birthed this book. I’ll save it for the good doctor — this is the one “Dr.” reference he’s allowed me — to share. But, the very story, from the moment I heard it, filled me with envy.

For both of them, Calabar is a city with claws. You see it in the way Nkereuwem writes: it is from the soil and the water of the land that everything pours. Magic comes with deep veneration. Even when the magic is a job, or a duty, or a burden, or a conquest, there is still the acknowledgement of place that flows with it. The writers are at its whims and yet, there is a desire to hold it in regard, a desire to attenuate their relationship with it such that it benefits them. Perhaps even to own it. You get the feeling that the text spiritually lifts Calabar off the map and looks into all parts of it.

Forgive my use of second person there — perhaps this is an emotional sentiment that resonates strongly only with me. But you must understand, I write from a place of dislocation. My next sentence on a blank page comes with a lilt — it can not land. And so work this grounded feels like a heady offering to me. It is a bold attestation of belonging that makes me weep.

In a voice note I prodded Nkereuwem with in preparation for writing this, I asked about this translation of place. Forgive me for taking tips in the name of a review. In his reply, he said he wanted to “capture the essence of the place.” He spoke of work like Chimeka Garrick’s A Broken People’s Playlist, another love letter, but to Port Harcourt. He spoke of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Nsukka. What he spoke of, without words, was the kind of understanding that comes from a place where and when one really lives. 

And when one really lives, what is a surprise? What new thing did Calabar whisper to Nkereuwem Nkereuwem? It is this familiarity that allows Nkereuwem to reproduce Calabar and its headiness with microscopic detail.

I know this is a strange take-away. Understand that I am a person of many dislocations. Home is still a place that I am looking for with both eyes open and both palms outstretched. But that is what fantasy is for; the very act of peeling open a world unseen requires you to know every dwindling trickle of tar and bend of its bay. And so The Bone River came to me at the right time. It came as a reminder that you only move on when you find unseen but solid ground.

In her review of Ben Okri’s seminal novel, The Famished Road, Linda Grant recounted, “When I finished the book and went outside, it was as if all the trees of South London had angels sitting in them.”

It is the power of excellent fantasy, of characters dwelling behind a curtain in our very own worlds, speculating about us as we about them, that allows us to, very briefly, wipe the scales off our own eyes and see the secret peace that holds our foundation. Much like Grant, I finished The Bone River and stepped outside my house, hopeful that I could feel sigils and wards inscribed in the walls of my home, trusting that I could find my unseen world, too.

Bio:

Jesutomisin Ipinmoye is an author and beleaguered lecturer learning to suffer sexily on an island in the Indian Ocean. He is a big fan of the short story and, as such, has publications (in, or upcoming in, Khoreo, Twisted Tongue, Brittle Paper, etc.) and a book (“How to Get Rid of Ants,” Parrésia Publishing) to that effect. You can find him on Substack, where he’s investigating our stuck-ness in time.

The 2026 Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund (TAFF), which will fund travel for a North American fan to the 2026 Eurocon in Germany, is open for nominations until February 1, 2026, 23:59 Pacific North West time.

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The Clarion Workshop in San Diego CA has announced the instructors for its 2026 session: Andy Duncan, Elizabeth Hand, Grady Hendrix, Sarah Pinsker, Abbey Mei Otis, and Erin Roberts.Jac Jemc is faculty director.

The workshop will be held June 28, 2026 – August 8, 2026 at UC San Diego. Applications for the workshop opened on December 1, 2025 and close February 15, 2026. For more information, see the Clarion website. …Read More

The Odyssey Writing Workshop has announced its online classes for 2026.

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The LAcon V organizers have announced that Terese Mason Pierre will be a special guest for the 84th World Science Fiction Convention. Pierre is an acclaimed Canadian writer who has worked to platform members of equity-deserving communities, chief programming officer and an editor for Augur Society, and editor of anthology As the Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories (House of Anansi). Pierre said,

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Playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard, 88, died November 29, 2025 in Dorset, England.

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The LAcon V organization team has announced via email that the 2026 Hugo Awards will feature Best Poem as its additional category.

LAcon V chair Joyce Lloyd said,

Speculative poetry has a long and storied tradition. Arguably the first works of speculative fiction were epic poems like the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad. We're pleased to invite the membership of this Worldcon to nominate and vote on their favorite …Read More

Canadian SF writer Jean-Louis Trudel, 58, died November 17, 2025.

Trudel was born in Toronto, Ontario. He began publishing short fiction in French as early as 1984. He wrote several genre works in English, and more have been translated. His short fiction and poetry has appeared in Asimov's, On Spec, Polar Borealis, Star*Line, The 2022 Rhysling Anthology, collection The Snows of Yesteryear (2017), and many others. He was a long-time …Read More