The lion’s tale

Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter. Kenechi Uzor understood that African proverb long before he first saw a lion in the flesh, 7,200 miles from his Nigerian homeland. A handful of these majestic animals roamed their territory at Utah’s Hogle Zoo: a few grassy acres dotted with human-made grottos and sunlit perches backed by the Wasatch Mountains. Uzor gawked at the animals, aware that many of those around him may assume he’d be used to seeing them.

Uzor moved here from Lagos, a metropolis of 21 million residents on the Gulf of Guinea, the most populous urban area in Africa. Growing up, he moved among high-rise apartment buildings, grand theaters and churches, modern bridges and expressways. There were bookstores and libraries where he learned about American culture from authors like Mark Twain. But there were no lions. “As far as (Americans) are concerned, we in Nigeria live next door to all of these wild animals,” he says. “Instead of blaming them for ignorance, I understand it’s just because they don’t have enough to be well informed about Africa.”

When he came to the United States in 2016, Uzor was dismayed at the lack of African titles on bookshelves. He enrolled in a master’s program for creative writing at the University of Utah and found that all his assigned readings were written by Western authors. Even students driven by curiosity had trouble finding books by African writers. Now, as a professor at that school, he thinks about what his students miss by seldom reading African perspectives. And he worries that his daughters are growing up with limited access to stories that could help them explore and embrace their own heritage.

The lions at the zoo are powerless to shape their narrative, but Uzor knew he was not. So two years ago, he launched an independent publishing house based in Salt Lake City. He named it Iskanchi Press, inspired by the Hausa word for nonconformity. The Hausa are an ethnic group native to West Africa, and Hausa is their language. But his purpose is larger: to make sure Americans can read the literature and hear the voices of his home.

The proverb that acts as Uzor’s guiding principle is famously articulated by Chinua Achebe, known as the father of modern African literature. In a 1994 interview with the Paris Review , the late Nigerian author spoke of stories he read as a young man that depicted Africans as savages. He found that positive representations of his culture were seldom seen in the broader literary world; instead, depictions were monolithic, stereotypical and negligent. “That was the way I was introduced to the danger of not having your own stories,” he said. “I had to be that historian. It’s not one man’s job. It’s not one person’s job. But it is something we have to do, so that the story of the hunt will also reflect the agony, the travail — the bravery, even, of the lions.”

Achebe’s seminal 1958 novel, “Things Fall Apart,” recounts the arrival of European colonial forces to a fictitious Nigerian village in the late 19th century through the eyes of a local leader and warrior who is eventually demoralized by his people’s utter surrender. That point of view was revolutionary. Now a classic, the book has been translated into nearly 60 languages, with more than 20 million copies sold worldwide and is frequently taught in American schools. Western audiences tend to credit him with creating African literature, but that is not quite accurate.

Uzor’s purpose is larger: to make sure Americans can read the literature and hear the voices of his home.

Northern Africa played key roles in the development of Western culture. Egypt helped pioneer written language with hieroglyphics. St. Augustine of Hippo wrote “The City of God” and “Confessions” (probably the first memoir) in Latin, from his home on the coast of modern Algeria. Jewish philosopher Maimonides wrote “Mishneh Torah” in Hebrew and “The Guide for the Perplexed” in Arabic, both seminal texts, while living in Egypt. And the University of al-Qarawiyyin, founded in Morocco in 859, became a magnet for literature and learning while Europe struggled through its dark ages.

Go a little deeper, and most African literature simply wasn’t accessible to Western audiences. Somalia is known as a “nation of poets,” but many compose and recite their works on the spot. Sub-Saharan cultures have relied on oral storytelling since time immemorial. This egalitarian and intimate practice is still used to impart traditions and social norms. They can be told by specialized storytellers, like griots in West Africa, or shared from parent to child. Many stories are still told this way, exploring themes like identity and existence, war and migration, life and death. Some are “ trickster tales ,” in which anthropomorphized and mischievous animal characters play out human moral quandaries. Others are epics, following the trials and victories of fabled heroes. These are the foundations that modern writers like Achebe built upon.

It was only in the 20th century that these stories could finally be printed in European languages. Since that time, African authors have unlocked new viewpoints, lessons and imaginings for a wider audience. Contemporary authors like Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Abdulrazak Gurnah have graced bestseller lists and garnered National Book Awards and Nobel Prizes. And Afrofuturism, which mingles science fiction with Black culture, has gifted us the first mainstream African superhero through Marvel’s “Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda” comic book series.

Still, those examples are recent and relatively few. Uzor wants to remedy that. “What we do that is different is that we are all Africans,” Uzor says, with a few minor exceptions. “We are trying to portray African perspectives as clearly and as originally as possible.” In its first two years, Iskanchi Press has published 10 books spanning genres from Afrofuturism to mystery and coming of age. An eponymous magazine publishes shorter, more experimental pieces by African writers. Uzor also plans to publish children’s and young adult books, adding to the 1 4 percent of titles published in the United States that are by Black or African authors. “I think every perspective should be included. Every voice should be heard as much as possible,” he says.

In “The Emperor’s Son,” by Liberian author Vamba Sherif, a boy and his father traverse the savannah. Zaiwulo, who is almost 13, carries a sapling he considers precious for the fire-colored blooms it will soon produce. But he hears hooves thundering toward him across the grasslands. In a flash, a horse races by, close enough to snatch the sapling in its teeth. The boy screams and the horse’s mysterious rider pulls back on the reins. “What does the tree mean to you, child?” he asks. Before Zaiwulo can answer, in all his pride and bravery, his father rushes over to apologize. It’s only then that Zaiwulo realizes the rider is a fearsome warrior — just as the warrior sees something in Zaiwulo, something that makes him more remarkable than either he or his father know.

Sherif’s book is a work of historical fiction that follows a 19th century African leader dubbed the “Black Napoleon” for his resistance to English and French colonizers, who is celebrated for being as much of a scholar as he is a warrior. Sherif grew up hearing legends of the character’s inspiration, Samori Touré, but never encountered Touré's legacy in writing. “I wanted not only to tell the story of the African resistance to colonialism, I wanted to paint a picture of a society that was very advanced and that was very civilized, a society that appreciated scholarship,” Sherif says. “Because that’s my story.”

His novel was first published in Dutch, but Sherif struggled for years to have it translated into English for an American audience. But his agent got a different response when he pitched it to Iskanchi Press. “It felt like homecoming,” he says.

Industry consolidation and mergers have narrowed opportunities for writers to get published. About 80 percent of the trade book market is now controlled by just five publishing houses, each a for-profit business that rarely bets on outliers or underdogs. That is even more daunting for international authors. Just 3 percent of books published in the U.S. are translated into English from another language, almost half from French, Spanish or German. About 60 percent of all translated books come from presses that are affiliated with universities or simply independent — a category Uzor is proud to be a part of.

Since their stories were first printed in the 20th century in European languages, African authors have unlocked new viewpoints, lessons and imaginings for a wider audience.

“Independent presses serve a vital role in this whole ecosystem in terms of bringing voices to light that could be passed over by mainstream publishing,” says Jill Smith, director of the University of Denver’s Publishing Institute. “And they are frequently in a position to publish books that would not be acquired by the big five.”

While Iskanchi Press may never get an office on Madison Avenue, it has the freedom to focus on authenticity, provocative retellings of history and stories that can only be told by those who experienced their impact.

Consider “Angola Is Wherever I Plant My Field,” a collection of postmodern short stories infused with humor by Angolan author João Melo. “Contemporary history is full of examples that confirm the profound and multiple irresponsibilities of Angolans,” he writes. “Firstly, when millions were taken to the Americas as slaves, not only did they resist being completely destroyed by brutal exploitation and unknown diseases such as influenza and syphilis, but they taught their very oppressors how to forge iron, extract diamonds and gold from the ground and how to plant (and harvest) sugar cane and coffee.”

More than revisiting this piece of shared history from a perspective that is probably new to most American readers, Melo is offering them something grander: empathy. This is a significant benefit of literature that has only recently come to scientific light. It also makes projects like Iskanchi Press feel that much more essential.

Marybeth Timmermann has never been to Mauritania. The Islamic country in northwest Africa lies more than an ocean away from her home in Greenville, Illinois. She never had a reason to feel anything for a land so distant or its people — until she translated “Barzakh: The Land In-Between” by Mauritanian author Moussa Ould Ebnou from French into English. The novel recounts an odyssey through time, history and philosophy as the protagonist Gara traverses the Saharan desert in a state like limbo, somewhere between living and dead, known as “Barzakh” in Arabic.

“It broadened my horizons and made me understand there’s so many different, interesting ways of looking at the world,” Timmerman says. She has translated plenty of material, from works of fiction to the scholarly writings of French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, but none expanded her world like this one. She fought for the book, pitching it to literary agents and small presses before it eventually landed at Iskanchi Press, because she believed it can break down stereotypes and help Americans to learn about a place few have even heard of.

Reading fiction can shape perceptions and alter the brain , allowing us to vicariously experience the places and events we read about. Research in neuropsychology shows that when we read, activity lights up our temporal lobe (which processes language), motor cortex (which processes movement) and olfactory bulb (which processes smell). By psychologically mimicking the experience, we not only learn from the choices of others but get to see through their eyes, boosting our empathy and emotional intelligence.

“Reading about other cultures, reading stories from other perspectives helps us develop an understanding of people who are different but also helps us find commonalities with other cultures,” Smith says. “It helps with our cultural and global awareness to read outside of ourselves and our own experience.”

When he reflects on the power of literature, Uzor thinks back to the awe he felt at the lions he saw at the zoo. But he also remembers his first winter in Utah, his first snowfall. He scooped up a handful of the white powder and inspected it. “OK, so that’s how it feels,” he thought to himself. Not as strange as he’d anticipated. Kind of like the inside of a refrigerator. Unfamiliar but easy to understand.

What had prepared him for that moment, and all the other changes that came with a new life in a new place, were the stories he’d read back home. Books like Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” taught him about snow — how it falls, crunches underfoot and captures tracks. But they also helped him to understand a culture and lived experience that was far removed from his own. “When I moved to America, it seemed like I already knew what America was about,” he says. “It wasn’t so much of a shock to me because I’ve been reading.”

This story appears in the September 2024 issue of Deseret Magazine . Learn more about how to subscribe .