SINCE the last decade, Speculative Fiction has gained considerable global relevance. Writers of this category of fictional genre have expanded their niche to the extent the press, internet and movies are resplendent in their work. In recent years, there is seldom any literary short list or win that does not feature, at least, one speculative work.

In the just concluded Ake Festival held in Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja GRA, Lagos, with the interesting theme ‘Fantastical Futures’, five African writers—including Wole Talabi and Tochi Onyebuchi—bagged the four categories of the Nommo Awards organised by African Speculative Fiction Society (ASFA).

The ASFS is an organisation of African writers, editors, comic and graphic artists, and filmmakers in the areas of speculative fiction such as fantasy, science fiction, stories that draw on tradition, horror and philosophical fictions.

Since its launch in November 2016, ASFS and the six-year-old Ake Festival have succeeded in forging a symbiotic relationship that has celebrated speculative fiction writers and artists whose works have changed the narrative of African literary landscape.

The ASFS has four categories of awards: the 1000-USD-worth Ilube Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel, the 500-USD-worth Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novella, the 500-USD-worth Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Short Story, and the 1000-USD-worth Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Graphic Novel.

Among these categories, Wole Talabi won the Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Short Story with his The Regression Test, while Tochi Onyebuchi won the Ilube Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel with his Beasts Made of Night.

Talabi’s The Regression Test, published in 2017 by the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and later the Manchester Review, tells a science-fiction story of a 116-year-old woman, Tililope Ajimobe, who is subjected to a sorites regression test designed to determine if an artificial intelligence created by extrapolating and context-optimising recorded versions of a particular human thought patterns has deviated from the way the original person would think.

Out of the 44 long list for the Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Short Story and later the five shortlist, The Regression Test was found worthy of the award by ASFS members that nominated and voted for the stories.

The other four works in the shortlist include Nerine Dorman’s On the other Side of the Sea, Sibongile Fisher’s A Door Ajar, Chinelo Onwualu’s Read before Use, and Henrietta Rose-Innes’s Snake Story.

Talabi, who confessed in an interview that he does not know how a story would end when he starts it, once said, “The things that I consider are what make sense for the characters and for the story, as well as how I want a reader to feel when the story ends.”

Perhaps if he were told that The Regression Test would end up winning a Nommo Award when he started writing it, he would have probably doubted it.

Talabi, curator of ASFS publication database, observed in Omenana in 2016 that some of the resistance to re-imagined Afro-futures has to do with “not believing in our own ability to create a strange and wonderful future; not believing in our ideas.”

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Filled with joy after the award was given to him, Talabi, who conceived The Regression Test idea in a massage parlour and finished it in a bar, said, “I have been writing for a long time. I write science fiction mostly because I think that it’s cool.”

Wole Talabi is a Nigerian full-time engineer, part-time writer and some-time exditor, who currently lives and works in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

His love for scuba diving and oddly shaped things has metamorphosed him into a prolific writer with more than 20 works published in major speculative fiction magazines.

His short story Wednesday’s Story was shortlisted for the 2018 Caine Prize for Literature. His debut short story collection, Incomplete Solution, will be published in 2019.

On the other hand, Tochi Onyebuchi’s Beasts Made of Night published in 2017 by Penguin Young Readers Group is a masterpiece partly because his editor, Tiffany Liao, encouraged him to make Nigeria a foundation for the novel.

After completing the novel, Onyebuchi said this about the book and Liao: “I could see the forum clearly; the gowns that people wore; the smell of goat meat and egusi soup… Tiffany helped me to find the music in the noise.”

Beasts Made of Night, set in a fantastical world full of dark magic, narrates a story of a boy named Taj, who absolves beasts’ sins by eating them, resulting in the animal markings that cover his body. When he kills a sin beast, a tattoo of the beast appears on his skin while the guilt of committing the sin appears on his mind.

Among the 11 long list for the Ilube Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel and later the six shortlist, Beasts Made of Night was considered the best by ASFS members that nominated and voted for the novels.

The other five works in the shortlist include Gavin Chait’s Our Memory like Dust, Masha du Toit’s The Real, Deon Meyer’s Fever, Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Warrior and Deji Olokotun’s After the Flare.

When Onyebuchi, whose career tracks revolve around law and writing, was asked: To what extent has African literature envisioned an African future? He answered, “For so long, the story of Africa and Africans centred on colonisation. But the future is decolonised. To speak of Africa specially and entirely is to envision an Africa future. The African future is us.”

Onyebuchi’s comment, when the award was given to him, was, “Beasts made of Night was the first novel where I allowed myself to really delve into Nigeria, my Nigeria of heritage, where I come from.”

Onyebuchi, who stumbled into writing when he was in seventh grade, has written up to 15 unpublished novels. As a screenwriter and columnist, some of his works covered topics such international organised crimes and the fall of the Soviet Union. His works have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction and Ideomancer, among others. He is also the author of the novel, Crown of Thunder.

Tochi Onyebuchi is a Nigerian US-based writer and lawyer who works in a tech company in Connecticut. He has a BA from Yale, an MFA from Tisch, a master’s degree in global economic law from L’institut d’etudes politiques, and a JD from Columbia Law School.

At the juncture, the other Nommo Awards won by other people are worthy of mention. Out of the three short list, Tade Thompson’s The Murder of Molly Southbourne published in Tor.com won the Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novella, while out of the six short list writer Kwabena Ofei and artist Setor Fiadzigbey’s Lake of Tears published in lakeoftearsghana.com/volumes won the Nommo Award for Best Speculative Graphic Novel.

It is inspiring to know that Ake and ASFS are not only convening the best African literary icons in Africa and beyond to discuss the future of Africa and Africans, but are also rewarding literary creativity and innovation through quality publications and awards.

It was not sheer coincidence that this year’s Ake Festival’s theme was in sync with the type of fictional genre ASFS is interested in. More interestingly, ASFS has more fund to sustain the Nommo Awards in the next four years.

Just as the Founder and Director of the Ake Festival, Lola Shoneyin, rightly pointed out, “We chose the theme ‘Fantastical Futures’ because it is important that we talk about the future we imagine for our continent with boldness, honesty and charity.”

During the presentation of the 2018 edition of the Ake Review, the editor of the magazine, Molara Wood, bearing the theme of the festival in mind, said, “It is one in which we can create a better future using our imagination, on own terms, and one in which our problems will be solved.”

For most writers, success is associated with literary prizes. Talabi and Onyebuchi have proven this with their fantastical works and genius. They have also proven that African future is not an abstract space, but a real one accessible through art and literature.

Remarkably, they have also proven that it is fun to dare into the future many people are scared to even imagine.

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