Así como las ficciones nos acercan al otro, la ausencia de ficciones convierte al otro o bien en un completo desconocido, o bien en un cliché. Si nos invitasen a conjurar una imagen mental de, por ejemplo, la Suazilandia en la década del 70, es muy probable que a la mayoría de nosotros solo se nos presente un gran vacío. Una vez que se nos informara que Suazilandia es un país al sur de África y que en la década del 70 se abolió la constitución y se prohibieron los partidos políticos, entonces seguramente recurriríamos a los lugares comunes almacenados sobre África como un todo homogéneo: extensas sabanas, tierra agrietada por la sequía, dictadores, matanzas étnicas, jirafas y niños de vientre protuberante. Con este objetivo nace Editorial Empatía: dar a conocer relatos que nos acerquen a tiempos y geografías sobre las que, hasta ahora, han circulado escasas ficciones en lengua española. Libros que nos inclinen a una participación afectiva en realidades hasta ahora ajenas y que den cuenta de las similitudes y diferencias entre los cincuenta y cuatro países que componen el continente africano y sus casi mil millones de habitantes. Esta antología inaugura nuestra serie africana con cuentos de once autores de diversas nacionalidades. Esperamos que este sea solo el inicio de una larga sucesión de historias que nos ayuden a cobatir la historia única. Porque de eso se trata Empatía.
Authors
Lily Mabura is a fiction and children's author who was born and lives in Kenya. Her children's book, Ali and the Little Sultan won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature. The Pretoria Conspiracy, her first novel, was awarded the (Kenyan) National Book Week Literary Award for the Best First Novel in 2001. (from http://www.africanbookscollective.com...)
Chika Unigwe was born in Enugu, Nigeria, and now lives in Turnhout, Belgium, with her husband and four children. She writes in English and Dutch. In April 2014 she was selected for the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature. . Unigwe holds a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and an MA from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. She also holds a PhD from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, having completed a thesis entitled "In the shadow of Ala. Igbo women writing as an act of righting" in 2004. Chika Unigwe is een dichter en schrijfster, geboren in Nigeria en wonende in België (zij beschrijft zichzelf als "Afro Belgische"). Ze schrijft in het Nederlands en in het Engels. Ze is doctor in de literatuurwetenschap aan de Universiteit Leiden (Nederland).
Binyavanga Wainaina was a short story writer, essayist, and journalist. He was the founding editor of Kwani?, a leading African literary magazine based in Kenya, and he directed the Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artists at Bard College. He won the 2002 Caine Prize for African Writing, and wrote for many journals, including Vanity Fair, National Geographic, One Story, Tin House, Virginia Quarterly Review, Harper's, Granta, the Sunday Times, and the New York Times.
Doreen Baingana is a Ugandan short story writer. Her book, Tropical Fish won the 2006 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, best first book, Africa, and an AWP Short Fiction Award. She has graduated from Makerere University with a JD, and from the University of Maryland with an MFA. While at Makerere University Baingana was an active member of FEMRITE - Uganda Women Writers Association, which she has referred to as "a literary home of sorts". Her work has appeared in AGNI, Glimmer Train, African American Review, Callaloo, The Guardian, and Kwani. She currently resides in Uganda
Presumably a person, occasionally a table. I write stories.
Helon Habila was born in Nigeria in 1967. He studied literature at the University of Jos and taught at the Federal Polytechnic Bauchi, before moving to Lagos to work as a journalist. In Lagos he wrote his first novel, Waiting for an Angel, which won the Caine Prize in 2001. Waiting for an Angel has been translated into many languages including Dutch, Italian, Swedish, and French. In 2002, he moved to England to become the African Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia. After his fellowship he enrolled for a PhD in Creative Writing. His writing has won many prizes including the Commonwealth Writers Prize, 2003. In 2005-2006 he was the first Chinua Achebe Fellow at Bard College in New York. He is a contributing editor to the Virginia Quarterly Review, and in 2006 he co-edited the British Council's anthology, NW14: The Anthology of New Writing, Volume 14. His second novel, Measuring Time, was published in February 2007. He currently teaches Creative Writing at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where he lives with his wife and children.
