31 Days of Horror: Day 24-- Trend Alert: African Horror

Today marks the beginning of a 3 day series on the very hot trend of African Horror. While this trend is still emerging in America, it has already begun to move into the mainstream as a popular subgenre of British horror thanks in large part to the work of Nigerian-British author, BBC contributor, and lawyer, Nuzo Onoh. Onoh is not only one of the most heralded writers of African horror, she is also its biggest promoter. She has made it her goal to educate the world on this thriving and vibrant subgenre.

We will hear from Onoh herself in a guest post written to you, the American library worker, tomorrow, but for today, I wanted to give you a very quick primer on African horror, point you to a few resources to explore on your own, and give you authors to check out.

 Let’s start with a primer. What is African horror? Well, in 2015, Onoh had this wonderful top 10 list explaining what African horror is and also, very importantly, is not: 

1. African Horror is not a reference to AIDS, famine or Ebola, just as Indian Horror is not a reference to rapes or honour killings. African Horror is a literary genre in its own right, a sub-genre of horror that has existed for centuries, albeit without a formal title till my book, The Reluctant Dead, began spearheading the term, African Horror. 

2. African Horror encompasses several horror sub-genres like supernatural horror, psychological horror, demonic/occultic horror, sci-fi horror (popularised by Nnedi Okoroafor) slasher/gore/splatter horror and paranormal romance to mention a few. My books are focused on African supernatural horror, specifically, ghosts and hauntings. 

3. Just like the old Japanese Kaidan tradition, African Horror stories are geographically targeted, depicting the core traditions, beliefs and superstitions of a particular village/tribe within a horror context. Thus, my books, The Reluctant Dead and Unhallowed Graves will resonate with anyone familiar with The Ring or The Grudge. 

4. African Horror is usually steeped in the moral values of individual tribes, with most stories reinforcing these values and the dire consequences of ignoring or abandoning them. Thus, in Unhallowed Graves, we witness the terrible events that befall a grieving mother who goes against the village traditions and attempts to resurrect her son buried in Ajo-ofia, the unhallowed burial ground of people deemed to have died an unclean or bad death. 

5. African Horror has a strong cinema presence in Nollywood films, a Nigerian film industry that produces popular drama, depicting terrifying supernatural events within an Igbo/African setting. 

6. Amos Tutuola, the famous author of The Palm-wine Drinkard and My Life in the bush of Ghosts, is the father of African Horror. His books are considered modern classics today and have been translated into several languages. 

7. Africans respect, fear, revere or abhor their Medicine men. Some cultures refer to them as Juju-men, Root-healers, Voodoo-men or witchdoctors. By whatever name they go, they all boil down to one thing - powerful men (and at times, very rarely, women) whose actions, good or bad, always impact on the daily lives of their people. No African Horror story is ever complete without reference to these powerful and controversial Medicine-men. 

8. The Gullah culture of the American South has very strong ties to African culture and their horror stories are very similar to African horror. Today, Eden Royce, author of the book, Spook Lights and one of the few people that still speak the Gullah language, is spear-heading the Southern Gothic Horror, steeped in Gullah beliefs and culture. People that love Southern Gothic Horror will enjoy African Horror too. 

9. African Horror stories are not Folktales, contrary to popular conception. These days, modern African Horror is written in prose and style similar to mainstream horror, which readers from all over the globe can relate to. My last book, The Reluctant Dead, enjoyed wide readership from fans worldwide, proving that true horror does indeed cross all boundaries. My latest book, Unhallowed Graves, follows in the same style, while retaining its distinct African voice. 

10. Finally, African Horror books and films are out there for anyone interested in discovering the terrifying tales from our mysterious continent. Unfortunately, due to the unsatisfactory classification of literary works, one is likely to find African horror books under "Multicultural" rather than under "Horror". Hopefully, in the near future, an overhaul of the classification system will see more horror works by Africans writers and non-African writers writing African Horror, classified under their rightful category - Horror.

In that list, Onoh mentions the late, Amos Tutuola whose works can be found in many American public libraries, but I would bet you don’t have a horror sticker on them.  Back then, we classified these books as African “Mythology,” but they are horror-- loud and proud. Yes, Tutuola’s works, like many African horror writers use the monster from folklore as a starting point, but so do Western authors.  How soon we forget that the entire concept of a zombie began in Haitian culture. Yes, it has evolved from that kind of zombie in the last few decades, but that is where it began. Yet, we do not call zombie tales “mythology.”

Also, since humans have lived on the African continent far longer than here in America, they have a huge number of awesome monsters in their storytelling tradition to draw off of.

In fact, I would like to argue in this post today that if you have a typical American horror fan, especially one who has “read it all,” your best place to take that reader is to the rich and vibrant history of African horror and its awesomely terrifying world of monsters. 

Click here for a list from Mental Floss on 11 legendary [and terrifying] monsters from all across Africa with an attribution to their country of origin. This is just a glimpse into the source material for an entire continent of horror fiction inspiration.


Please do not worry about a white person from a typical American suburb not being able to relate to these African tales. That is a cop out. If your reader is a horror fan already, that is all of the necessary background he or she will need to fall right into these stories and love the terror that follows. It all is based on the same appeal factors. It is just the monsters themselves who are a little different.


I should also point out that I am mostly writing about African horror written by authors from Nigeria and South Africa because their work is the most easily found in English.

You can click here to read about a brand new anthology of African horror writers with 10 authors you can read right now, including Onoh. Here is the table of contents with links to the authors’ Goodreads pages [where applicable]. The links will lead you to more authors and more story compilations by the very best African horror authors today:

“Daughter Dearest” by Chioma Odukwe – A woman who has just lost her husband finds herself in danger of losing her daughter as well and goes to desperate lengths to keep her in this unusual zombie story.

“Shame” by Nerine Dorman – A biracial couple try to find acceptance during South Africa’s post-apartheid transition period but find themselves confronted with a devastating horror instead. 

“Sleep Papa, Sleep” by Suyi Davies Okungbowa – A mistake made during a taboo trade leaves a young man in modern Lagos desperate to rid himself of something terrifying from beyond the grave. 

“Blood and Fire” by Sawaleh – Religious corruption in one of Africa’s largest Megachurches provokes an ancient and unspeakable horror that seeks to punish, corrupt and feed. 

“Koi-Koi” by Raymond Elenwoke – One of Nigeria’s most prevalent and persistent urban legends is given an origin story in this frightening interpretation of the Lady Koi-Koi mythos. 

“Eaters Of Flesh” by Ezeiyoke Chukwunonso  – A young university student is confronted by mysterious events involving his parents that threaten his sanity and his life. 

“Afin” by Edwin Okolo – Twisting the Snow White fairy tale in surprising ways and transposing it to pre-colonial Nigeria, the court of a king is thrown into disarray when his older wives pit themselves against his youngest. 

“Hadiza” by Nuzo Onoh – A man’s greed and lust lead him to divorce his faithful and loyal wife, an action that has dire consequences in this Nollywood-Horror style tale.
“The Wild Dogs” by Mandisi Nkomo – A Swedish woman volunteers to help fight a strange disease consuming Cape Town and comes faces to face with monstrous inhumanity. 

“Udu” by Damilare Falowo – A village girl and her newborn child are thrown into a cursed forest to die but in the forest she finds vengeful things that are worse than death. 

with an Introduction by Wole Talabi

I wanted to end by reminding you that there are some bigger name African writers of dark speculative fiction who you have in your libraries and who take the time to promote their lesser known colleagues including Lauren Beukes, Sarah Lotz, and Nnedi Okorafor. [Not surprisingly, 2 out of those 3 are white.] Let’s start with the known authors, and begin to branch out from there. You don’t want to miss out on this trend. Take advantage of its spike in popularity to grab some new reads for your patrons.
Tomorrow, Onoh, the true expert, will be here with a guest post, and then Wednesday, I will have a review of her latest novel, The Sleepless, which has already garnered heaps of praise across Great Britain. 

31 Days of Horror: Day 25-- Guest Post on African Horror with the Queen of the Subgenre-- Nuzo Onoh

For part 2 of my 3 days series on African horror, I asked Nuzo Onoh to talk about herself, her own works, her devotion to publishing and promoting African horror, and the writers she loves.

I have to say, this is one of my best author guest posts as Onoh is not only a good writer, but she is also very smart and thoughtful.

I know every library worker will learn  something from this post and that makes me very excited.

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Tell us about Yourself 
My name is Nuzo Onoh and I write a horror subgenre I refer to as African horror. Re-defining the term, "African Horror", has been my passion as a writer. I’ve been championing the term as a bona-fide horror subgenre, just like Scandinavian, Korean, Japanese horror, etc, rather than a negative condition of the continent as mostly portrayed by the popular media. I have written three African Horror books to date - The Reluctant Dead (28th June, 2014) Unhallowed Graves (28th June 2015) and The Sleepless (28th June 2016). I’ve also featured in multiple radio/tv/print/online interviews discussing the unique freshness of African Horror and I feel very honoured that the world’s longest running magazine of cult entertainment, Starburst Magazine, featured their first African Horror author, my humble self, in both their online and print magazine. (issue 427)


As a child, I grew up with ghost stories told during the tales by moonlight sessions. We kids would gather around my uncle who’d tell us stories about scary ghosts. Other storytellers at the moonlight tales would tell us different stories, nice stories about animals and wicked stepmothers, but I wasn’t interested. My uncle’s ghost stories were the main thrill for me. Moreover, since we Igbos bury our dead in our homes and not in cemeteries, I grew up surrounded by the graves of my immediate family in our back garden. The graves-stones were our play-pen. The brutal war between my people, the Biafrans and the Nigerians, also exposed me to death on a daily basis. Consequently, by the time I was old enough to read my first novel, my fascination in the supernatural, especially ghosts, was firmly entrenched. Amos Tutuola’s ghost book, The Palmwine Drinkard (1952), introduced me to the written world of ghosts, replacing the oral ghost story-telling tradition I had hitherto known. When eventually I stumbled across Stephen King’s The Shinning (1977) years later, I was totally hooked on ghost stories. Film-wise, I would watch Ju on (The Grudge), Insidious, The Sixth Sense, A Christmas Carol or see Sadako crawl out of the television in The Ring any day over most horror films. So it goes without saying that when I decided to write my African Horror books, it would all be about ghosts, African ghosts with unfinished business.


Sadly, due to the uniqueness of my works, agents and traditional publishers have been reluctant to take the chance with such unchartered waters so I’ve been publishing my books under my own
imprint, Canaan-Star Publishing UK and vigorously promoting the genre. Today, I’m proud to say that my perseverance is yielding dividends and African Horror is now gaining more recognition in horror circles worldwide. These days, I’m being called upon by radio stations to discuss current news topics from the African continent especially those that relate to issues featured in my books. Otherwise, I spend my days trying to get my teenager to engage in conversation with me or if all else fails (as it inevitably does with taciturn teenagers), try to get my cat, Tinkerbell, to become the first talking cat in the world.


So, what exactly is African Horror? 
Africa has a cesspool of terrifying supernatural entities which very few cultures can rival in their sheer volume and malevolence. Coupled with the intense superstitious beliefs of the various tribes, it becomes apparent that African Horror as a genre, has a lot to offer. African Horror is therefore in my view, horror stories about any of the myriad of African supernatural entities, superstitions and practices, set in Africa with African protagonists in the main, depicting core African culture within a supernatural horror context. As is the case with most regional works of horror, I’ve adopted a thematic approach in my books. Africa is an immense continent with a diverse culture which can only be truly appreciated with this type of approach. I have opted to write about ghosts, since in my culture, the Igbo culture, the supernatural is accepted as a part of everyday living. Most of my writing is themed around supernatural vengeance from beyond the grave by ghosts with unfinished business. There is a strong moral element to my stories. Karma plays an important role, with ghostly vengeance for wrong-doings featuring frequently in the tales. Like the Japanese onryō or Vengeful Ghost, African ghosts become more powerful in death than in life and need the intervention of diviners or “witchdoctors” for exorcism rites. Unlike Western ghosts who can be benign, funny, mischievous or plain stupid, there’s nothing funny about African ghosts. These are ghosts with a mission, deadly or benign. These are ghosts shrouded in deep culture and mystery. They’re powerful, vengeful, wise, omnipotent and dangerous. They’re a new type of ghost horror fans are yet to come across unless they’re Africans. My books explore Igbo myths, superstitions and lore amidst hauntings, possessions, manifestations and supernatural occurrences. All the stories are set in Igboland, Old Biafra, in
present day Nigeria. I’ve tried to show how burial customs, deaths, Christianity, colonization and superstitions have affected African/Igbo beliefs in the afterlife, reincarnation and haunting.


Why do you love horror? 
Horror adds excitement to my life, brings in the thrill and oompff that’s otherwise absent in my daily existence unless a special occasion or unexpected event brings it into my experience. Like the highs sought by addicts, I live for that special shiver of anticipation the sight of a good horror book or film brings. I’m like a child who can’t wait to see what Santa’s left under the tree. The wonderful thing is getting lost in this mysterious, terrifying dark world, praying everything turns out alright in the end, even as you know you’ll derive immense satisfaction if it doesn’t. My everyday life always seems so mundane after I emerge from my fantasy world of horror. Yet, it always seems safer, saner, nicer and purer at the same time and that’s what I think keeps me returning to horror, knowing that my very ordinary life is infinitely better than the exciting terrors in the pages and screens of horror-world.


What’s your writing style? 
When I write, I write as if I’m the reader. I write the way I like to read, no frills, no unnecessary scenes, boring long-winded backstory, dump-in-bin secondary characters…I just get on with the story and let my characters tell it the way they want. I’ve always been an impatient reader who likes to know what’s happening without being bored with excessive descriptive narratives and long-winded conversations between very minor characters who do nothing to drive the story. I want to know everything… everything, no matter how terrible or harrowing. Don’t treat me with kid’s gloves. Give it to me as it is. So, I guess my writing style reflects my reading style, fast, direct, no holds barred. I sprinkle my work with Igbo words, which my readers find easy to understand as they follow the storyline. It makes it authentically African. I also try to highlight the unique culture, superstitions and beliefs of the Igbo tribe within the supernatural narrative that’s the hallmark of my work. Ritual murders of innocent children by evil witchdoctors, children accused of witchcraft, widows forced to drink “corpse water” used in washing the putrid corpses of their husbands, malevolent
haunting by the ghosts of people buried in bad forests, unhallowed grounds …these are just some of the harrowing themes in your books. Why do you write such disturbing works?


My personal life has been a brutal one with lots of deaths, abuse and violence. I pull on my experiences when writing my stories, experiences which my readers find unbelievable and disturbing. But I write them because like bad junk, I have to get them out of my head. My writing is therefore in most cases, a personal exorcism for me, even as I weave in the horror elements of ghostly manifestations into the narrative. There are also aspects of my African culture I object to even as I love so much of my heritage. I choose to address them in my books. Fantasy gives us the freedom to say things we would never otherwise say, hang out the dirty linen without worrying about nosy neighbor spying and bitching about it, reach for the stars and Nirvana with or without the world rooting for you. Fantasy is the ultimate release, unchained freedom and in my world of horror, I am finally free in a way I could never hope to be in my ordinary real life. There’s a lot of badness and goodness in this world. I’ve experienced both and in my writing, I share them with the world in the hope that it might make a perpetrator think twice and a survivor, rejoice.


Tell us about your books
My first African Horror book was The Reluctant Dead, published on 28th June 2014, incidentally, a date I have chosen to publish all my books. The Reluctant Dead is a collection of six short ghost stories. It was my gentle introduction to African Horror and showcased the uniqueness of the new horror subgenre. In it we see the ghost of a spurned wife return to wreak terrible vengeance on her husband and his mistress and we follow the travails of a young boy who is a night-flyer, trying to break a century-long curse on his bloodline by an angry ghost. These are just a couple of the stories in the book. I followed it up with Unhallowed Graves, published 28th June 2015. This is a collection of three Novellas, long stories, which goes in-depth into the dark terrors of my culture. It features my first white protagonist, a scornful diplomat, who is forced to confront the terrible secrets to The Night Market run by the dead after his wife buys him an unexpected gift from the market. Unhallowed Graves has so far proved the most popular work I’ve done to date. My latest book is a full novel, The Sleepless, published 28th June 2016. One of my reviewers said that she started dreaming of demons possessing her child after reading the book, that was how harrowing it was for her. I held nothing back when writing The Sleepless. It is African Horror unchained, starting with the gruesome ritual murder of a disabled child. I am working on my fourth African Horror novel due out 28th June 2017. The working title will be either “Disturbed” or Iwe (Fury). I am also working on an anthology piece for an American publisher also due out next year.


Finally, tell us about your favourite authors/books 

The Palmwine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola. Now a modern African classic, this book is like no other except maybe, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by the same author! It’s fantastical, crazy, weird, hilarious, imaginative…I can’t say enough about this book, which incidentally was my very first introduction to horror. Discover ghosts as you’ve never seen them before; read dialogue that just blows your mind with its novelty. Some literary snobs initially slammed the book for the unbelievable grammatical errors that litter the narrative till they came to realise that this was precisely what made the book special, authentic, different and like no other, ever!

Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. Another modern classic, a war story depicting the tragic heroism of the three hundred Spartans that sacrificed their lives to save Western democracy from Islamization. This book is so haunting that it stays with you for the rest of your life. The narrative voice is powerful, lyrical, masterful… truly unforgettable. So many scenes leave your skin with goose pimples while the tears just flow heedlessly. I have read this book four times and each time, I discover something new, the goose pimples still come and my tears still flow.

The Godfather by Mario Puzo. I think almost the whole world have read this book J. If they haven’t then they are missing a ride of a lifetime! This medium is not enough to say all the reasons why I love this amazing book. All I can say is, “this book is THE GREATEST!”

Spook Lights by Eden Royce. This book is amazing and unique as it’s also an emerging genre, Southern Gothic Horror, depicting the Gullah culture and written by a native Gullah writer. I love this book because there are many similarities between the Gullah culture and the Igbo culture that I write about, not to mention the graceful and lyrical prose that is the hallmark of Eden Royce’s works. An absolutely brilliant read.

31 Days of Horror: Day 29: An excerpt from Nuzo Onoh's A Dance for the Dead out This Tuesday

Author Nuzo Onoh is back after a five year hiatus with a brand new novel [out 11/1] and she offered all of us an exclusive except.  You can also read this excellent CrimeReads piece she wrote this week entitled "5 Female Demagogues of Horror.

Below is some information about Onoh and her novel, A Dance for the Dead which received this excellent advanced blurb:

“Nuzo Onoh’s A DANCE FOR THE DEAD is a thrilling, creepy, and moving novel about betrayal, sacrifice, redemption…Very powerful. A story I won’t soon forget.”

--Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Cabin at the end of the World

It has been five years since Nuzo Onoh, widely known as the Queen of African horror, released a novel. In that interval, she has published a novella, The Unclean, been twice longlisted by the British Science Fiction Association Award and shortlisted by the Nommo Awards, published stories in multiple anthologies including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from African and the African Diaspora, Africa Risen Anthology, Picnic in the Graveyard anthology, and the highly acclaimed collection, Revelations: Horror Writers for Climate Action featuring many of the big and rising names in the horror genre, amongst several other anthologies.

For Nuzo’s fans and horror lovers around the globe, the long wait for another African Horror chiller is finally over. Nuzo’s latest novel, A DANCE FOR THE DEAD, is released on 1^st November, 2022 by Stygian Sky Media. The novel is described on the publisher’s website as “a chilling African-horror tale of sibling betrayal, dark rituals, malevolent curses, and supernatural vengeance by the undisputed “Queen of African Horror” Nuzo Onoh.” 

The highly prestigious Publishers Weekly, describes the book as a “gripping dark fantasy…The vibrant worldbuilding and steady pace keep the pages flying. Readers are sure to be impressed”. Acclaimed horror author, Jeremy Bates has this to say about the book, “Nuzo Onoh’s novel, A DANCE FOR THE DEAD is a mesmerizing and terrifying thrill-ride from start to finish. I haven’t read anything really like this before.” And the award-winning Australian author, Eugen Bacon writes, “Nuzo Onoh writes simply and powerfully, masterful at a calibre of African horror that yanks out your outrage, solidifies your fear.” 

Going by the mostly 5-star early reviews on Goodreads, the Queen of African Horror is back to her rightful throne. A DANCE FOR THE DEAD follows the tragic story of two princes, Ife and Diké, and the consequences of betrayals, abuse of power, prejudice, and supernatural vengeance. In hallmark Onoh writing, the book brims with superstitions, powerful magic, malevolent ghosts and brutal cultural practices in the notorious Ukari village, the fictitious African village in Onoh’s stories that has become the equivalent of Derry in Stephen King’s works.

The book begins with an African saying, “When a man’s penis grows too big for his loincloth, he shouldn’t be shocked when a monkey mistakes it for its banana” But readers should not be deceived by this humorous opening. While there are flashes of humour in the story, the plot is one that is filled with the kind of terror and brutality that will leave readers unsettled long after they have read the final page.

Prince Diké is the first son of the King, heir to the throne and leader of the fearsome warrior cult, the Ogwumii. His younger brother, the handsome Prince Ife, is a famed dancer, with an addiction to Palm-wine and merry-making. Despite being engaged for over three years, Ife is still to marry the village beauty, Ada of the Nightingale Voice. In frustration, the king instructs Diké to arrange with the Ogwumii warriors to abduct Ife and force him into marriage.

Ife panics. His best friend, Emeka, suggests they abduct Diké instead. Dike’s abduction would plunge the kingdom into panic and scuttle the unwanted marriage to Ada of the Nightingale Voice. Emeka has always hated and envied Diké and Ife, unaware of the dastardly intention behind Emeka’s plan, agrees to the abduction.

The book blurb states:  On a moon-lit night, Diké, heir to the Kingdom and leader of the terrifying warrior cult, the Ogwumii, falls asleep inside his bedroom. He wakes up to find himself trapped within the secret shrine of the village deity, a dark cave forbidden to all save the powerful witchdoctors. Overnight, the mighty warrior-prince becomes an Osu- an untouchable and outcast. In disgraced exile in the forbidden shrine, his sole companion is the raging ghost of a murdered slave girl, wrongly sacrificed to the gods on the false prophecy of a lecherous witchdoctor. To break the Osu curse, Diké must find the traitors who orchestrated his downfall and embark on a terrifying journey to the ancestors' realm, a deadly quest that could end his life or return him to full citizenship and glory.

This brief synopsis already gives readers a taste of the dark thrill awaiting them. The ghosts are powerful and malevolent, while the witchdoctor rules in evil supremacy. Intrigues and treachery are abound and readers will be left rooting for vengeance and redemption. The below extract from the book will give readers a taste of what to expect from this latest offering from The Queen of African Horror. Happy reading.

_________________________________

(Except from A DANCE FOR THE DEAD)

A terse silence hung in the air, a silence of screeching hate. The witchdoctor stared coldly at the gathered warriors.

“Diké, son of Ezeala of Oma clan, hear this!” he pointed a blood-reddened finger at Diké. “I once again pronounce the curse of The Shadow Crows on you! A dark cloud now hovers over your head, a cloud of crows, the shadow of misfortune and pain. You have become the foolish chicken that walked out of the protection of its mother’s wings and became food to the preying hawk. Even as you stand before me today, your body has already become meat-feast to the grave worms.”

 Dibia Okpoko turned and faced the stunned warriors, his eyes blazing. “Hear this! Any of you warriors who refuses to abduct the slave-girl for the sacrifice, shall also be burdened with the curse of The Shadow Crows. Your foolish leader has commanded that you reject the heart of the slave-girl and I will not punish you for obeying your leader. That is the law of your cult, after all. But you must obey the laws of the land by performing your duty to the gods, which is to bring the human sacrifice into the shrine. Go now and bring the slave-girl that you may all live. As for your leader, he is doomed. I, Dibia Okpoko, have spoken, and the words I sow have never failed to harvest crops.” 

He turned back to Diké and spat into the soil. “As for you, proud prince, upon your foolish head be your doom. The black birds have spread their invisible wings over you and the clouds above you have turned to night in the middle of the day. Start counting your days, proud prince, and remember to count backwards, not forward.”

For several terse seconds, the two men glared at each other, hatred blistering like an inferno between them. Finally, Diké picked up his machetes and turned and walked away from the shrine-grove. He waited to hear footsteps behind him, the fearless feet of his warrior-leaders and his father.

 

He heard nothing. No one followed him out. 

A sudden shiver layered his skin with goosebumps. He shook it away with a loud curse as he stalked away from that place of death. Every man has his own palm-lines, his own lines of destiny, he thought. He could not fight Chicken-Legs’ doomed destiny. He could only fight his own. He didn’t believe that the decrepit witchdoctor had any powers over his destiny, regardless of his threats. Should misfortune come, he would handle it with the fortitude of a man. Should death come instead, he would face it like the warrior he was and fight it without fear, without mercy, and with great respect.

***

A DANCE FOR THE DEAD (paperback) is now available for preorder from all reputable retailers. Click here to order 

A special edition hardcover is also available from the publisher. Click here to order

(About the Author)

Nuzo Onoh is a Nigerian-British writer of Igbo descent. She is a pioneer of the African horror literary subgenre. Hailed as the "Queen of African Horror”, Nuzo’s works have featured in numerous magazines, podcasts, and anthologies, as well as in several academic studies and publications. 

Nuzo holds a Law degree and a Masters degree in Writing, both from Warwick University, United Kingdom. She is also a certified Civil Funeral Celebrant, licensed to conduct non-religious burial services. An avid musician with an addiction to JungYup and K-indie pop music, Nuzo plays both the guitar and piano, and holds an NVQ in Digital Music Production from City College, Coventry. She currently resides in The West Midlands, United Kingdom, with her cat, Tinkerbell.

31 Days of Horror: Day 26: Review of The Sleepless

This is the third and final installment of my series on African Horror. I will end with a review. I hope this is helpful to my primarily Western audience, so that you can see how easy it is to suggest this diverse title to a wide range of horror readers. Please click here and here for the other posts in my African Horror series.

Today I have a review of The Sleepless by Nuzo Onoh.  In the interest of full disclosure, I did receive an e-ARC of this title from the author in exchange for an honest review. Here is the plot description via Goodreads:

An innocent boy is lured to his death by the one person that should have protected him. Someone knows the truth about his disappearance; his little sister, Obele, a child that hears a secret voice which tells her terrible things no child should know about. Obele knows too much and must be killed. Her salvation lies in the hands of her new friends, a group of giggling little girls she meets at an abandoned "cursed house." Except their friendship comes with a terrible price. And suddenly, Obele starts to ask herself who exactly...or rather, what exactly are her new friends. Worse, how can she free the tormented ghost of her dead brother, trapped by a witchdoctor's curse? Set amidst the Biafran War, "The Sleepless" follows one child's struggles against both the natural and supernatural forces that threaten to end her life before the deadly enemy bombs can do so. And perhaps, death from the skies is a better option than the terrifying alternative. "The Sleepless" - Another chilling tale about the restless and vengeful dead by the Queen of African Horror, Nuzo Onoh."

The seamless blending of a true life, horrific situation with supernatural “monsters" is the biggest appeal here.  As Onoh writes here, she has lives through the real life horror of the Biafran War and domestic abuse. She draws on her personal experiences with real life horrific events and writes about them with skill; however, it is in how she incorporates the supernatural monsters into the story where this book shines as Horror. The monsters-- real and otherworldly-- bring the fear in equal measures, so much so that as a reader, you start to believe that the supernatural threats are just as real as the human created ones.  As a result, the novel is permeated by an intense sense of dread that never lets up. [This is huge praise for a horror novel for those of you new to the genre.]

Much of this success is the result of Onoh’s ability to capture the place, Africa, and it’s dangers so effortlessly. Yes the woods have wild animals, but they also contain witches, ghosts, and ghouls that can and will insert themselves into the human world. Many writers have grown up in places where this folklore was a part of their every day life [the Southern Gothic tradition is an example], but not all can capture it for the outsider as well as she did here. It took me a while after completing this book to stop looking for witches around every corner.... in the Chicago suburbs! Talk about feeling the fear.

The pacing is also brisk. The novel covers about two years of actual time and a lot happens, but Onoh clearly knew where she wanted this story to go and moves the reader along swiftly, keeping the blood, the fear, and the plot twists coming. You will want to read this book in as few sittings as possible.

The characters here-- both good and evil-- are well developed. In the case of the protagonist this is wonderful, as we easily fall into her plight and want to follow her on her difficult journey. But writing a sympathetic, well developed protagonist is one thing, here Onoh is also able to craft terrifyingly realistic bad guys-- like Obele’s father-- with enough detail that they move beyond stereotype.

I also appreciated learning about the Biafran War by reading this novel. Although I had heard of this  war and knew a few surface details about it, I gained a larger understanding of its importance and devastating influence. So for that reason alone, many readers may want to read this novel.

I do want to mention that this book has two very big limiters-- the obviously mentioned violence against children, but more importantly, the book opens with a visceral scene involving a dead cat. If I have learned nothing else over my 16+ years of working with readers it is that when you kill a cat or a dog, people get angry. So I am passing that info on to help make your hand selling of this title easier.

Three Words That Describe This Book: Intense Dread, Fast Paced, Strong Characters

Readalikes: I already spent the last 2 days, here and here, writing about other African horror authors so I am not going to list any of those readalikes in this post.

Rather, I want to focus on readalikes that are a little more familiar to you.

Here are some books that also feature child narrators and monsters which are seamlessly integrated into  a true horror situation, making the terror feel all the more real:

• Children of the Dark by Jonathan Janz
• Dweller by Jeff Strand
• The Troop by Nick Cutter

Here are some other female horror writers who incorporate ancient evil into their terrifying horror novels:

• Tower Hill or The Reckoning by Sarah Pinborough
• Water Witch or A House Divided by Deborah LeBlanc

If you are looking for other books that use a real life war as the backdrop to a horror novel, I would suggest:

• The Devils of D-Day by Graham Masterton
• The Keep by F. Paul Wilson
• The Wolf’s Hour by Robert McCammon

Finally, if you are interested in a horror writer who draws off of African myths and themes but in a more familiar America setting, you NEED to read the work of Tananarive Due. I wrote about her work here on the blog back in 2011. Personally, I am a big fan of the African Immortals series which begins with My Soul to Keep.

31 Days of Horror: Day 26-- Diverse Horror Options

Yesterday I talked about Nisi Shawl and her increased popularity. She is just 1 example of how the own voices movement is taking over Horror. There are more diverse options within the genre than ever before, and quite honestly, they are some of the best voices. [For proof, see Nisi Shawl]

We’ve come a long way from the racism and misogyny of Lovecraft. Speaking of, I did an entire book talk on the fact that there is a reemergence of Lovecraft in today’s genre fiction and much of it tackles his bigotry head on.  You can click here to listen to that.

Before we get into own voices horror fiction, I also want to mention that in the world of horror, diversity still means including women.  For many years, men controlled horror both as authors and readers. Well, that’s not exactly true. There were women writing horror. I mean, a woman-- Mary Shelly-- invented the genre and many others wrote horror, but the overwhelming culture of horror, it’s fan boys, the conventions, and lifestyle were dominated by white men. While there are now many female horror writers and readers, many men still think women don’t like horror.

I would like to clarify here that today’s horror authors are almost all supportive of the female writers in their ranks. It is mostly still the bro-readers who have a problem with women. I am not imagining this bias either. Earlier this month SYFY Wire had an article entitled, “Women Love Horror: Why Does This Still Surprise So Many Dudes?"

Okay now on to my suggestions for own voices horror.

Let’s start with my series of posts last year on the emerging trend of African Horror. Click here to read my post about the trend, a post by Nuzo Ohno, an African horror scholar and author, and a review of one of her books.

Another popular subgenre that is not new at all, but is moving into the mainstream thanks to horror legend, Tananarive Due, is Afrofuturism. Here is an overview of Due’s course on the topic. I highly recommend Due’s work for any fan of dark literature. You can find more info about her here by me, and here on her site. Due has been talking about the importance and influence of Afrofuturism for a long time, but one of the reasons it is being talked about now is the emergence of Nnedi Okorafor. You can read this profile of her and her work from the NYT here.

One of the best places to find suggestions of books and authors is from other authors. A few year ago, the Horror Writers Association was appalled at how white and male their slate of Stoker nominees were. Instead of just paying lip service to the problem, they immediately set up a task force of women and POC authors to start regularly suggesting own voices authors from the horror genre. They called this features-- The Seers Table. Now a few years in, these monthly suggestions are piling up and you can see an archive of all the columns by clicking here. You must click on each title to open the entire column.

One of the members of the HWA who worked hard on the Seers Table initiative is Linda Addison an award winning author and poet. Anything by her is excellent, but specifically I want to point out an amazing collection for which she was an editor, Sycorax’s Daughters. It is an anthology of dark fiction and  poetry by black women writers. Click through for details and a list of 28 more authors you should know about.

Stephen Graham Jones is another author you need to know about. Not only do I think he is the leader of the next wave of “the best” horror authors, he also brings a Native American perspective to the genre. I really like this recent interview he gave where he talks at length about his work, “representation,” and why own voices matter. The first time I encountered Jones was hearing someone else read his work out loud and it held me spell bound. I have never looked back.

Finally, don’t forget the voices of those around the world.  There is a wonderful resource, Speculative Fiction in Translation to help you.

31 Days of Horror: Day 1-- And So Another Year Begins.

Welcome to the the 6th [!] annual 31 Days of Horror, my annual blog-a-thon on all things horror for public libraries.

During October there are many websites, people, and places celebrating with 31 Days of something in honor of Halloween, but as far as I know, I am the only place where the information is geared 100% toward horror in and for public libraries.

So if you found me through a non-library source please know that this information may not be what you are looking for. I have a focus-- it’s your local public library. I am here to help library workers help their scariest patrons. If you are simply a horror fan, you will still find useful things here, but know that my eyes are firmly set on the library.

With that out of the way, let’s get started with a little sneak peek into what I have planned for this year:

• My regular annual updates to all of my resource pages
• LINKS! So many useful links.
• Reviews and suggestions of good horror titles and authors for library collections
• Original lists
• Many giveaways
• Guests posts and interviews with librarians and authors
• This year I also have at least 2 linked theme posts (taking place over a few days). One on YA horror and one on African horror. I am particularly excited about the African horror 3 day event because it is one of the hottest trends in horror and I have a guest post by one of the subgenre’s best authors.

So check back here every day. I will be here.

But before I go for today, I also want to point you to two other blog-a-thons going on with some organizations I am affiliated with. I highly recommend checking out what they are doing too.

Each year, the Horror Writer’s Association runs their Halloween Haunts posts in October with at least one post a day by members. Since the HWA is made up of so many different people in the horror field, the posts are varied, interesting, and enlightening. Click here to check back frequently.

And over on Booklist Reader, horror author and Booklist Editor, Daniel Kraus is running his 8th annual 31 Horror Film in 31 Days.  Click here for the FAQ for this year complete with links to all previous years. 

So until tomorrow....

15 Best Horror Books of Century: A List with Commentary and Changes by Becky

One of my favorite horror review sources is Matt Molgaards Horror Novel Reviews.

In general this is a great place for public libraries to look for a wide range of horror options suitable for most public library collections. Molgaard curates a nice sampling of horror from the obvious best selling choices to the best of the small presses and everything in between.

Often the main stream review sources are not enough for your to develop a robust enough horror collection to meet demand, and provide enough varied choice for your patrons.

Earlier this week, Molgaard posted his list of the 15 Best Horror Novels of this Century-- so far.

Take a look because this is a list of books every public library should own. Overall I like the list for a few reasons, but I also have a few complaints-- specifically from the public library collection development point of view.

First the pros:

1. If I am being honest, I like this list because it validates the books which I have pushed in my book and on my blog.  For example, in my book I talk about Joe Hill and Jonathan Maberry as being the "New Kings of Horror." I wrote that back in 2010 (published in 2012) and both have only produced increasingly better stories and gotten more popular in the meantime. Morgaard includes books by both authors on his list.
2. This list also includes the book I have proclaimed as my absolute favorite 21st Century horror novel in print, online, in newspapers, on public radio, and on podcasts-- The Ruins by Scott Smith.
3. I appreciate how this list looks at the range and types of horror novels that have appeared this century and tires to represent it. For example, comic horror rose to popularity during this time, and Morgaard clearly picked the best book of the bunch-- John Dies at the End by David Wong. That is a great book!
4. House of Leaves!!!!!

Now the cons. And again, I want to stress that my problems with this list have to do with the fact that my readers-- library workers-- need to create as diverse as a collection as possible, representing the best of all types of horror in terms of gore level and writing style, but also from a wide range of authors:

1. There are no minority authors on the list and when I think best books of the 21st Century, two titles come immediately to mind: Zone One by Colson Whitehead or The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle [both by African American writers]. Those are among my personal favorites.
2. There are no female horror authors on the list, and as I just wrote in my new "Trends in Horror" article for NoveList-- women horror writers are on the rise. But even going back to the beginning of this century, Sarah Langan and Sarah Pinborough each wrote some of the best horror novels of the 21st Century. The Missing by Langan is a classic and Breeding Ground by Pinborough is among my favorites of her older works, but her newer stuff is also some of the best horror written by anyone right now.
3. Two other books I loved during the first years of this century which I did not see on the list are Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow  and The Caretaker of Lorne Field by Dave Zeltersman.

Okay Becky, so it is easy to complain about the lists of others but what would you take out?  Well, again my audience for the list would be different than Morgaard's so I would remove Odd Thomas because, well, no one in our world needs a reminder to purchase Dean Koontz and I would also take out 1 Dan Simmons and 1 Stephen King-- they don't need 2 on the list. We get it, they are very good at horror and can write a wide range of scary stories, but put 1 title by each on the list and then mention a runner-up in the annotation.

That leaves me three spots:

1. I would put in the Victor LaValle, and then I would sneak the Colson Whitehead into the annotation for House of Leaves [as a note like "another good literary horror read is..."]
2. I would have to go with The Missing by Langan but since she is not writing as much anymore, I would also mention Pinborough in the annotation.
3. Instead of Kootz, I would pick Sharp Teeth over The Caretaker at Lorne Field only because of the former's amazing style-- told in verse-- and the fact that it is a very urban horror novel, a setting that is becoming more popular.

Take a look through the list for yourself. Many of the books also have reviews here on RA for All: Horror and/or are annotated in my book.

And thanks to Morgaard for making this list, sparking a conversation AND for hosting and editing  Horror Novel Reviews.

And in more horror collection development news, look for my Halfway to Horror annual take over of The Readers' Shelf column in the April 15th issue of Library Journal. When it goes up on the website, I will post it on the blog.

Announcing the HWA Diversity Grant Recipients

As I have mentioned here in the past, I was part of a team that created the Horror Writers Association Diversity Grant. From the information page:

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) believes barriers—often unseen but very real—exist which limit the amount of horror fiction being published by diverse voices. The goal of these Grants is to help remove some of the barriers and let those voices be heard.

While the HWA Board worked on the guidelines [myself included], I recruited library leaders to seed the first of the $500 grants. With $500 donations from ARRT, LibraryReads, NoveList and my company, RA for ALL, we guaranteed there would be 4 recipients in year one. But then, we also encouraged others who agreed with the mission of the grant to donate what they could. Our coffers filled up, from companies like Night Worms and Cemetery Dance to just individual library workers and horror authors, and after we were inundated with applicants we were able to offer 6 grants this year.

Below is the official press release, but before I get to the recipients, I want to call out the committee and publicly thank them for their work. Fellow board member, Linda Addison led the team. Linda is one of the founders of the HWA's Diverse Works Inclusion Committee which produces our monthly Seers Table. She is also the definition of a living legend. She has the help of HWA members Grady Hendrix, Larissa Glasser, V. Castro, and Maxwell I. Gold.

For more information about the HWA Diversity Grants, please visit here.

To see the official announcement on the HWA website, click here. But I have also reproduced it below. Please look up these authors' work and consider adding them to your collections.

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The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2020 HWA Diversity Grants:

Jacqueline Dyre (they/them) is the editor and publisher of Novel Noctule. You can find them in the sunshine state, drinking poorly-made coffee and consuming psychological horror in lieu of meals.

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (he/him) is a Nigerian speculative fiction writer, slush reader and editor. He has been awarded an honourable mention in the L Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest, twice and won the Nommo award for best short story by an African with his short story The Witching Hour. He has been published in the Selene Quarterly, Strange Horizons, Tor, Omenana Magazine and other venues, and has works forthcoming in several anthologies and magazines. He has co-edited several publications, including the Dominion Anthology (2020), the Best of African Speculative Fiction Anthology and the Bridging Worlds non-fiction anthology, forthcoming in 2021. He is a first reader in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and a member of the African Speculative Fiction Society, Horror Writers Association, Codex, BSFA, BFA, and the SFWA. 

Gabino Iglesias (he/him) is a writer, editor, professor, and book critic living in Austin, TX. He is the author of Zero Saints and Coyote Songs and the editor of Both Sides. His work has been nominated to the Bram Stoker and Locus awards and won the Wonderland Book Award for Best Novel. His nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. His fiction has been published in five languages and optioned for film. His reviews appear in places like NPR, Publishers Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, Criminal Element, Mystery Tribune, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and other venues. He's been a juror for the Shirley Jackson Awards twice and has judged the PANK Big Book Contest, the Splatterpunk Awards, the horror category of the British Fantasy Awards, and the Newfound Prose Prize. He teaches creative writing at Southern New Hampshire University's online MFA program and runs a series of low-cost online writing workshops. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.

Nicole Givens Kurtz (she/her) is an author, editor, and educator. She's a member of Horror Writers Association, Sisters in Crime, and Science Fiction Writers of America. She's the editor of the groundbreaking Slay: Stories of the Vampire Noire. She's written for White Wolf, Bram Stoker Finalist in Horror Anthology: Sycorax's Daughters, and Serial Box's The Vela: Salvation series. Nicole has over 40 short stories published as well as 11 novels and three active speculative mystery series. You can support her work via Patreon and find more about her at http://www.nicolegivenskurtz.net.

Tejaswi Priyadarshi (he/him) is a dreamer in the horror/thriller genre. He derives inspiration from Stephen King, Michael Crichton, Dean Koontz, Takashi Miike, Alexandre Aja, Eli Roth, Quentin Tarantino, and the Ramsay Brothers.

His first book The Psychopath, The Cannibal, The Lover was India’s first splatterpunk novel. It was released in July 2020, and has since remained on multiple bestselling charts, scaling its way up to be Amazon India’s highest rated Horror Thriller with 175+ ratings.

He is currently working on his second novel, trying to amalgamate Horror, Crime, Thriller, and Social Satire. You can often find him writing fiction at a bar counter, appreciating Independent Pop music gigs, and holding screenings of all sub-genres of horror/thrillers. However, nobody knows why he adamantly screens Purani Haveli so often. Email him at tejaswi.priyadarshi@gmail.com if you want to discuss anything under the sun; “How to Prep for a Zombie Apocalypse” is his favorite topic, because, what if!

Sumiko Saulson (they/them) is an award-winning author of Afrosurrealist and multicultural sci-fi and horror. Ze is the editor of the anthologies and collections Black Magic Women, Scry of Lust, Black Celebration, and Wickedly Abled. Ze is the winner of the 2016 HWA StokerCon “Scholarship from Hell”, 2017 BCC Voice “Reframing the Other” contest, and 2018 AWW “Afrosurrealist Writer Award.”

Ze has an AA in English from Berkeley City College, and writes a column called “Writing While Black” for a national Black Newspaper, the San Francisco BayView. Ze is the host of the SOMA Leather and LGBT Cultural District's “Erotic Storytelling Hour.”

Congratulations!!

About The Horror Writers Association

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is a nonprofit organization of writers and publishing professionals around the world, dedicated to promoting dark literature and the interests of those who write it.