Nonfiction collections are rare, as most of the short-type story mostly focus on fiction. Limbe to Lagos though it´s unique in more than one aspects: it is a collection of nonfiction stories, AND it gathers creative pens from Cameroon and Nigeria, countries that do share a common history and geography and intense publishing connections.
The stories, not equal nevertheless relevant as windows into contemporary existence in those countries, beyond the usual corruption and political mayhem that is mostly associated to these countries and geography in general, are part of a exchange project supported by Goethe Institute. It was developed over few years and through various locations, including some literary residences in the exquisite German island of Sylt.
It was very interesting to follow the stories, for their unique particular voices, but also sometimes their very mundane focus: human (sometimes obsessive) connections, everyday life and death. Although politics and social challenges do represent the tapestry of the stories, they are rarely singled out as such, and this is a well-deserved fresh literary air. There are stories with a nuanced literary value and hard to distinguish from literature; who will check if there are facts that really happened in real life or just it´s the outcome of the author´s imagination?
The collection carefully edited by Dami Ajayi, Dzekashu Macviban and Emmanuel Iduma should be an example to be replicated in other countries as well, in Africa and beyond. It´s a candid eye into a world whose voices are hardly heard in the everyday chaos. There may send a ´no news´ signal, but nevertheless it open the eyes and the hearts of the readers to a world who has as much right to be featured as the political one.
Rating: 3.5 stars
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