It’s been more than a year since Issue 2, and what a time it has been.
Since then, “Commensalism, or The Labyrinth’s Vessel,” from Issue V of the anthology, won the Ignyte Award for Outstanding Short Story. Two more of our stories were shortlisted for the Nommo Award for Best Short Story: “If Memory Serves” by Kevin Rigathi, also from Issue V, and “The Future Ancients” by Mwenya S. Chikwa, from Issue 1 of the magazine.
Off the page, we hosted a quiz night and a book swap. We also quietly kept laying the groundwork for much of what we hope to do in publishing.
Not all of it was highlights. A series of economic challenges and personal tragedies slowed us down, and the editorial process for this issue in particular was unexpectedly long. But we’re back. Will This Be A Problem? is no stranger to long breaks, yet somehow we always find our way back into the thick of things. So here it is. We present, Issue 3.
Lovers of oral African literature will appreciate Sipu’s Grove, in which Ebby Mokaya takes extra care to infuse with oral and cultural storytelling practices, specifically the phrasing and rhythm. A charming story that follows a strong willed girl after she is kidnapped, and the unlikely ally she finds on her way to freedom, it reimagines a familiar African trope and transforms into something more surreal and magical.
K Ameyo’s The Route to Naangya is a treat specifically for our Kenyan audience. After a long day at the office and an alarming phone call from her friend, Nafula gets on a matatu ride quite literally from hell. It’s a tension-filled tale with a fun twist at the end that will have you hesitating to get on the last bus home.
Amadin Ogbewe’s Before The Bell Tolls doesn’t slow the tension. A few minutes to curfew, Iyabosa is warned, ”this is Uromi, boy. You don’t want to know what happens to those who are found beneath these darkening skies.” But who is Iyabosa to listen to, the warning, or his empty stomach?
In Jesutomisin Ipinmoye’s Emi, we embark on a surreal and lyrical journey that takes us through dreams and their end, life and its end, and everything in between and beyond. A short tale but it carries so much within it. “I dreamt once of eating under the stars in a land very far from my home with a lover by me…I dream no longer. I dare not. I am too old to dream. To dream now is undignified.”
What we’re most excited for folks to read are the two creative nonfiction pieces we published, which both tackle themes of family, custom and superstition, albeit in different ways. Akal Mohan’s Vignettes of A Superstitious Life begins at a parent’s funeral; a space where many Africans grapple with navigating between what is known and what is understood. “I first knew that corpses could cry fifteen years ago when my father died.” Ogbewe’s second piece in this magazine, an essay titled ‘I Can’t Tell My Father I Love Witches’, tackles the all too familiar cultural conflicts that many African readers and writers of the weird and speculative may have encountered in their homes.
We hope you enjoy our latest offering!
Olivia Kidula
Olivia Kidula
Olivia Kidula is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Will This Be A Problem? Kenya’s first SFF literary magazine. She is also the publisher and editorial director of Shilitza Publishing Group, an independent press based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her short story, “Mummy Dearest ", appeared in Digital Bedbugs: 2019 Anthology of the Nairobi Fiction Workshop. With a decade of experience in print media and speculative fiction publishing, her proficiency in fiction and nonfiction is evidenced by a portfolio that includes novellas, short stories, and magazine features.