Sunday 6 April 2008

THE ‘ONE WORLD’ PROJECT

Writing can take you to fantastic places, fantastic people.

I have been working for a few months with a group of international writers brought together thanks to the Internet by Nigerian journalist Ovo Adagha.

The objective: to produce a strong anthology of short fiction exploring ‘Third World’ Issues.

Pretty quickly, and with not a little straight talking, we threw out that title, opting instead for one that seemed to say something about what we all believed.

ONE WORLD

There are many prizewinning writers in the team. The stories are varied in style, all very strong, and are bound together by a strong undercurrent.

I was blown sideways when Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Half of a Yellow Sun...)gave us a story!

Thanks to the unfailingly good humoured and courteous refereeing of Ovo, and the extraordinary commitment and energy of the team (not me… I was just too busy to participate fully in the run-up, but very honoured that my work was to be included), the finished MS is now being considered by several publishing houses.

Please watch this space for further updates.

The group:

Molara Wood (Nigeria)
Konstantinos Tzikas (Greece)
Lauri Kubutsile (Botswana)
Martin A Ramos (Puerto Rico)
Skye Brennon (USA)
Jude Dibia (Nigeria)
Pettina Gappah (Zimbabwe)
Ivan Gabriel Rehorek (Australia)
Chika Unigwe (Nigeria)
Ravi Mangla (USA)
Vanessa Gebbie (Britain)
Emmanual Kwa Dipita (Cameroon)
Lucinda nelson Dhavan (India)
Adetokunbo Gbenga Abiola (Nigeria)
Shabnam Nadiya (Bangladesh)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
Ken Kamoche (Kenya)
Elaine Chiew (Malaysia)
Sequoia Nagamatsu (USA)
Wadzanai Mhute (Zimbabwe)
Ovo Adagha (Nigeria)

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