Afro Anthology Series and Enkare Review have invited African story writers to submit a fictional work that centers around a blind protagonist or has blindness as its core theme. 

According to them in their release, the anthology will be published on World Sight Day 2018 which comes up on October 11 in recognition of blind citizens and to draw attention to blindness and visual impairment. 

Premised on the fact that, "There are over thirty-nine million blind citizens in the world, five million of whom are found in Africa. Over 285 million suffer from visual impairment of some kind."

For this reason, they "believe a collection of short stories by African writers centered around a blind protagonist will be a welcome addition to the recent burst of writings bringing the experiences of minorities to mainstream attention."

Therefore, interested story creators are to send short stories that revolve around a visually challenged character, and that show the anxieties, travails, and triumphs of the blind as they grapple with their condition. 

"Imagine the struggle and life of a blind person as a citizen, mother, sister, father, a resident in a neighborhood, a friend, a son, a daughter, atheist, queer, feminist, religionist. Explore this theme of blindness in any fictional genre that comes readily: magical realism, surrealism, realism, sci-fi, horror, fantasy and others.

"Let's use the richness of our human imagination to craft memorable blind protagonists devoid of sentimentality and dehumanization, blind protagonists with naturalness and normality, human beings full of flaws, full of hopes and aspiration, capable of joy, sadness, and breathing. The emphasis is on stories that challenge lazy stereotypes of blindness," they explained.

How to submit

Interested storytellers should note that this anthology's submissions which is open from July 1st to September 10th will only feature six short stories by African writers and only entries that abide by the guidelines below will be considered:

"-All work must be submitted by e-mail to submission.blindpro@gmail.com as a single attachment in one of the following file formats: .doc, .docx; which must be accompanied by a short bio of not more than 200 words.

"-Only writers with African citizenship or of African descent are eligible to submit works for this Anthology.

"-We will accept only short stories for this anthology. Just short stories, please. Don't send us poetry, creative nonfiction etc.

"-Word count is between 4,000 to 10,000."

The anthology which will be introduced by Dr. Lizzy Attree, will be compiled and edited by Basit Jamiu, in-house editor of Enkare Review and also the founder of Afro Anthology Series. 

Dr. Lizzy Attree is the co-founder of the Mabati-Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature. She has a Ph.D. from SOAS, University of London. She is a Director on the board of Short Story Day Africa and was the Director of the Caine Prize from 2014-2018. She also sits on the board of Writivism, which is part of the Centre for African Cultural Excellence (CACE). In 2015 she taught African Literature at Kings College London and will teach World Literature at Richmond, the American International University in London in the autumn.