From the 2022 Recommended Reading List: Voodoonauts Presents: (Re)Living Mythology

Here’s a highlight from our 2022 Recommended Reading list: the anthology Voodoonauts Presents: (Re)Living Mythology, edited by Shingai Njeri Kagunda, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, H.D. Hunter & LP Kindred, out from Android Press.

From the Voodoonauts Afrofuturist collective for Black science fiction and fantasy writers:

When a desperately mundane woman borrows clothing from her mother, a soucouyant goes searching for her skin. A Nigerian parent climbs mountains to heaven to steal a name and glorious destiny for their newborn. A master tailor gets her skills tested when a spectral customer enters her workshop and she can’t say no. A preacher casts dark magic from his pulpit when the Word ain’t enough to run his church. These tales and more populate Voodoonauts Present: (Re)Living Mythology.

Called from the imaginations of its inaugural fellows and a handful of solicited authors including Christopher Caldwell, TL Huchu, and Eden Royce, Voodoonauts curates a coterie of short fiction and poetry that paints across the breadth of magic and Blackness. Co-editors/founders Shingai Njeri Kagunda, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, Hugh “HD” Hunter, and LP Kindred ask Black Writers to interrogate their mythologies, folklores, superstition, and wives’ tales to create the book within your hands.

From the Locus review by Alex Brown, available in the January 2023 issue (excerpted):

Voodoonauts Presents: (Re)Living My­thology is everything I’ve ever wanted from a speculative anthology. It’s a col­lection of short fiction and poetry rooted in stories and traditions from across the African continent and throughout the Black diaspora. I have read many of the authors before and loved their work….

The stories collected here weave across space and time, allowing the diaspora to explore the connections and differences in our cultures. As much as I liked all of the entries, a couple stuck out for me. Ernestine-Vera Kabushemeye Gahimbare’s ‘‘Paying Forward’’ is an unsettling story about scientists who stumble into a violent situation. The ending is perfect in that it’s not what the reader wants or expects. I love it when an author keeps me off balance. In T.L. Huchu’s ‘‘Gogo Maroto’’, a teenage girl enters the lair of a witch to uncover her past, her present, and her future. It is a story of yearning for a homeland you’ve never been to and of choosing a path that will change your life….

Overall, Voodoonauts Presents: (Re)Living Mythology is a startling­ly good speculative anthology.

Don’t forget to vote in the Locus Awards for your favorite titles from 2022 at the Locus Awards Poll & Survey.

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