A review by thatothernigeriangirl
Selves: An Afro Anthology of Creative Nonfiction by Basit Jamiu

4.0

SELVES is an Afro anthology of creative nonfiction that contains 24 extremely diverse anecdotes from 24 authors, from different parts of the continent. The anecdotes covered topics such as homosexuality, writing, language, faith, child birth, relationship, love and even Boko Haram.
When Basit, the curator of this anthology, pitched the book to me, he mentioned quite passionately, that it took him and his team a while to gather, edit and publish the anthology and the fact that “creative nonfiction” was an untapped genre in African literature, encouraged them a great deal.

If you followed Brandon’s humans of New York series from the continent, this book is a more literary version of that storytelling and it forces you to come to terms with the fact that most things we read in fictions aren’t actually “fiction” but an extension of how our community experiences life differently.

Oh and my favorite anecdotes are This Hell Not Mine by Kenechi Uzor, The Shapes of Loss by Umar Turaki and Like Rambo’s Bullets by Gbolahan Badmus